Former stutterer Matthew Richardson has talked himself into jobs all over the world, helping others who suffer from the condition

SITTING on the veranda outside Nelson Mandela’s former home made me realise how far I have come. Not only had I just flown half way around the world to teach strangers how to say their names, but I was also sitting with people I had met less than an hour ago who I knew I would be friends with the rest of my life.

I met Anton on a Thursday. A 21-year-old from Cape Town, it took him nearly a minute to tell me his name. Yet in just two days he would be standing on top of a soapbox in a busy Johannesburg shopping centre making his first ever public speech.

If that sounds far-fetched, it isn’t. I know from first-hand experience. Growing up in Stockton, I suffered from a stutter that made even the most basic conversations an ordeal. Just saying something as simple as “Matthew” could take minutes.

My stutter occupied my every waking thought.

I would only order what I could say on a menu. I asked my friends to speak on my behalf and sometimes I would call myself a different name.

The physical side of my stutter was there for all to see, the blocking and facial distortions when attempting to speak were obvious. What people couldn’t see were my frustration and embarrassment.

I felt ashamed that I couldn’t do something that any young child was able to. I hated the way I sounded, the way it made me come across. Most importantly, I hated the way it made me feel.

I’d tried conventional speech therapy but, for me, it didn’t help. Then my mum heard about the McGuire Programme, which had been set up and run by people who had also been stutterers.

I went on my first four-day intensive course and it changed my life. Like Anton, I stood up on a soapbox in front of 200 strangers and made a public speech, the strangest thing being that I not only managed it, but I actually enjoyed the experience.

I had been taught a breathing and speaking technique that meant, at the of 22, I was happy to speak for the first time in my life.

The course is not a cure and that was stressed from the start. It is a method that would mean I could speak in any situation without the old fear I used to endure. Since then I have done things that I’d never imagined possible. I got married and made a speech at my wedding. I took a year off work and travelled the world. I have been lucky enough to be asked to instruct on the speech courses in the UK and Australia.

So when, last month, Chris Meintjes, who runs the courses in South Africa, asked me to head to Johannesburg for five days, I jumped at the chance, arranged time off from my accountancy job and had booked my flights within half an hour.

Along with Anton, four other people also signed up. When I met them on the Thursday morning, they couldn’t look me in the eye. They contorted their faces every time they tried to utter a word and withered when they were asked to stand up in front of the group.

Within two hours, they were holding their heads up high and bellowing their names and addresses without any struggle. By the end of the first day, every new student on the course had stood up confidently in front of the entire room and spokne freely without any hint of a stutter.

THE courses involve long sessions coached by people who have already been through the programme, practising the technique, group speaking activities and going out to use speech in real-life situations.

All five of the new students were nervous, but when they stood up on that soapbox in front of a crowd of strangers in a busy shopping centre.

They were buzzing with excitement. I couldn’t have been more proud: watching their transformation brought all my memories flooding back..

The course has taken me all around the UK, Australia and now to South Africa. The programme is maybe not for everyone who stutters, but for me it was perfect.

I am not a fluent speaker, never have been, never will be. Yet in a bizarre way, I consider myself lucky to have had a stutter. How many other people would get an opportunity to head to the other side of the world and help give some people the thing they’ve dreamt of all their lives?

  • The McGuire Programme runs courses in the UK. For details, contact Iain Mutch on iainmutch@hotmail.com or visit mcguireprogramme.com