Introduction (setting the scene).
I was born in 1937, two months ahead of schedule. My
mother was 44 and my father was 50. The Jessie
McPherson Hospital nursed me through from my premature
birth, with none of today's modern medical equipment.
My Mum and Dad lived in Newmarket, a Melbourne
suburb, with my Mother's Mum - my only living
Grandmother. At the time of my birth my Grandmother was
almost bedridden due to angina; my mother's single sister
(my Auntie Em) also lived in the house. In the tradition of
my family, I commenced Sunday School at the Newmarket
Baptist Sunday School at the age of 4. My father was a
soldier in World War I. He had lost an eye in the war and
was the Victorian Treasurer of the Partially Blinded
Soldiers Association. On some occasions he stuttered over
one word in a conversation; it was hardly noticeable. He
died when I was 10, as a result of war injuries.
I had a sheltered upbringing with lots of uncles and aunties
who visited regularly, as my mother had two married
brothers and one married sister, and they between them had
nine offspring, the eldest of whom was over 30 and married
at the time of my birth. They all visited our home regularly.
My father had two married brothers, and a married sister
who at the time of my birth had provided me with six
cousins. They also visited us, though not as regularly as
those who came to see their grandmother.
At the age of six, I commenced school at the Bank Street
State School, in Ascot Vale. As far as I can remember, I
began to stammer when I was in Grade 3. I would go
through school until 1949, at Moonee Ponds Central School
in 1950 and 1951, and at Wesley College in Prahran from
1952 to the end of 1955 without ever answering a question
in a classroom with one notable exception. I was never in a
school play. If I met a fellow student in the street and they
said "Hullo", I was unable to reply.
Throughout that time I never spoke to a stranger, nor could
I speak on the telephone. I could speak to some very close
friends and family members face to face (but not on the
telephone).
People thought I stammered because I was shy. They were
wrong. I was shy because I stammered.
I would try to speak to people, and to answer questions in
the classroom. When I opened my mouth to speak, no
sound emerged.
To give you a better picture, let me recount some
embarrassing and difficult happenings from my life which
illustrate what I did and how I felt.
Stories from Life
Example A Following the death of my father I became a
member of Junior Legacy. I remember all the boys from
my Legacy Club were invited to a Gala Film Festival in the
city when I was 12. I was booked to attend. When I arrived
at the theatre, an official asked my surname. I was unable
to say "Dickinson". He would not allow me to enter. I was
disappointed and angry. Someone else told the man my
name, and I was let in. It was humiliating.
Example B
When I was in Form IV (year 10) at Wesley
College, my English teacher had all the boys in my class
read a paragraph from one of the works of literature we
were studying. Each boy in turn would stand and read a
paragraph to the class. When my turn came to read, the
paragraph began with the sentence:
"Noiselessly, she went a step or two nearer".
I stood. I tried to say the words - without success. The
following conversation ensued:
Teacher: "What is the first word, Boy?"
Me: "Noiselessly, Sir."
Teacher: "Good. Say it again and continue with the
sentence."
Me: "Noiselessly, ……." (a long silence)
Teacher: "What is the second word, Boy?"
Me: "She, Sir."
Teacher: "Say: 'Noiselessly, she' and continue with the
sentence."
Me: "Yes Sir, Noiselessly, she ……….. (another long
silence.)
If the teacher's patience lasted, this pattern would continue
until I was able to say four or five words in a row. Then he
would give up and say - with great frustration: "Sit Down.
You silly little boy!"
The following week in that English class the procedure
would be repeated with a different book. My classmates
would sit patiently through it: I hated it. I hated not being
able to speak.
Example C
As a teenager, and by then active in my local
Baptist Church, all teenagers who were members of the
Church, were required to present an oral confession of their
faith at youth club meetings. I couldn't do it. So I
commenced singing lessons. I was then able to find a
Gospel Song, the words of which expressed my own
beliefs. I would write its title on a sheet of paper, and add a
request for the chairman of the meeting to announce my
song and say it summed up my confession of faith. Some
chairmen would try to kid me into announcing my solo. It
didn't work. I was embarrassed in front of my peers.
Example D.
I started work in the Commonwealth Public
Service Board, in Melbourne, in December 1955. I
scheduled the appeals against people who were promoted
throughout all Commonwealth Public Service Departments
in Victoria. When appeals closed at 3 p.m. on a Friday each
week, I would receive up to fifty telephone calls from
people seeking advice concerning appeals. I would lift the
receiver, but couldn't speak. The clerk sitting beside me,
would take the receiver from me and say, "Ed Dickinson's
phone, Marsh speaking." The callers would give him their
name; he would tell me who it was and then say, "I'll put
Mr. Dickinson on." Then he would hand me the receiver.
And I would say, "Ed Dickinson speaking." I would then
complete the telephone conversation without a worry.
Looking back, I find this strange. It was not until I lost my
stammer, years later, that I could answer the phone.
Example E. In that same office I had my own
stenographer to whom I was expected to dictate official
letters. My stammer made dictation impossible. I would
write out the letters by hand and give them to her with a
note on the first page, which stated how many copies of
each letter I wanted. I would just drop my draft on her desk
without conversing.
Example F.
People often told me to sing my answers to
questions. They told me, "People don't stutter when they
sing." I tried that but - mostly - it didn't work for me, and if
I did manage to sing my sentence, I felt very silly. In my
mid twenties I was a tenor soloist in an 80-voice choir. I
remember being given a solo in an oratorio in a large city
auditorium. On the night of the concert when the time came
for my solo the conductor with his back to the audience,
pointed his baton at the organist. The organist played the
opening chord of my solo: I opened my mouth, but no
sound came out. Silence. The conductor flicked his baton a
second time, the organist played the chord . . . . . silence.
For the third time the conductor pointed to the organist; he
played the chord and the conductor - a bass baritone, began
my tenor solo. After the first few words, I joined him and
he, hearing me singing, stopped singing. I continued
through without further problems. Fortunately, as he had
his back to the audience the audience was unaware what
had happened.
People who helped (or tried to).
Many people did their best to help me. In Grade 5 my
headmaster took an interest in me and spoke with Speech
Professionals in the Education Department. I was sent to a
Special School in Travencore for speech therapy. My
Speech Therapist was a Miss Winter. She taught me how to
breathe correctly and how to relax. When I visited her each
week I would lie on a flat surface, and relax each set of
muscles in my body, starting with my toes, and finishing
with my neck and head. She would then lift my limbs in
turn to check that I was fully relaxed. I remember that she
talked to me throughout the process but I cannot remember
exactly what she said. On the same weekly visits I sat with
a Dr. Cathcart who was, I believe, a psychiatrist. We would
chat for half an hour. It was hard at the first, but as I came
to know him, my speech improved.
After 6 months of weekly visits, which I enjoyed, he
surprised me by telling me that I did not have a stammer.
He said I need not see him any more. He also said that
when I was older I would understand why I had a speech
impediment and it would then stop. I also stopped seeing
Miss Winter. I was puzzled, but not cured.
Similar therapy was given to me when I was at Moonee
Ponds Central, but it seemed to me that my stammer
became worse each time I went to a therapist.
Midway through year 12 at Wesley College, the Vocational
Guidance Master interviewed me about my achievements
in all aspects of my life and concluded by saying that I was
an average student, average at sport, and not famous or
infamous in anything at school. Yet, he said every boy in
the school knew me because I was the boy with a stammer.
He told me to find some other way to attract attention to
myself. At the time I was hurt, but I had a sneaking
suspicion that he was re-iterating what Dr Cathcart had
said.
An episode of my life was recently printed in a Wesley
publication. It read:
In Year 12 Ed was in the Headmaster's class for Divinity.
He says he remembers the Head making a statement about
God, which Ed believed to be wrong. He raised his hand,
was asked to speak, and did. He told Frederick he was
wrong, explained why, and sat down. Frederick smiled. The
boys clapped furiously. At a recent address at Chum Creek
Ed said,
"In my naivety, I thought my classmates were clapping
because I had argued with the Headmaster. I now know
they were clapping me for speaking. But I also think that
Frederick, knowing me to have been brought up in a strict
Baptist Home, baited me. However, the stammer stayed.
But Frederick left me knowing that I could speak in class if
I really wanted to."
During my time at Wesley the school prefects read the
Bible Lesson at the morning School Assembly. They were
coached by a voice expert. Long after leaving school I met
him, and he discovered I still had my stammer, and that I
had never had a date with a girl because I was unable to
either ask girls out or speak to them.
He wrote down the name of an English woman, Margaret
Eldridge who had come to Australia to work as a speech
therapist. He said she was very good at what she did and he
believed she could help me. He went on to say she had
worked in England with Lionel Logue who was the
therapist to King George VI. My local doctor gave me a
referral to see Mrs. Eldridge. I knew very little about her
then, but I would learn much later that she had founded the
'The College of Therapists' in London in the 1930's and that
Lionel Logue had been a Founding Member.
I began seeing her once a week. She was a much older
person than the therapists I had attended when a schoolboy.
Mrs. Eldridge was probably in her fifties. She was almost a
"mother figure" to me.
It was the same as before; she had me doing all the same
relaxation exercises I had done with other therapists. I
wondered what was the point of it all. But one thing stands
out in my mind. I told her one day about some of the
suggestions learned people and friends, and even therapists,
had suggested to rid me of my stammer. She told me they
wouldn't work for me. She told me I was different from
other people who had a stammer. She told me that there
were no two stammerers or stutterers that were the same in
the whole world. I found this incredulous and told her that I
did not believe her.
She replied by saying, "Would you believe me if I said that
there were not two identical personalities in the whole
world?" I said I could accept that. She said then, that I was
different from everyone else in the world, and that my
stammer was different from any other stammerer in the
world. I accepted that from her.
Two weeks after I had accepted her advice that I was
different from other people who stammered and my
particular stammer was unique, I was in a public meeting
and the Chairman asked me a question. I knew the answer,
I stood up, and without much thought answered in a strong,
clear voice. My colleagues were amazed. So was I! My
stammer had gone. 50 years later, I remember that evening
quite well.
My Own Thoughts on my Stammer.
In Grade 3, I had a mate who lived on my street who had a
stutter. He repeated the hard consonants at the start of each
word. L-L-L-L-L- Like th-th-th-th-th-this. Everybody made
a fuss of him. Surrounded by a large family, and being well
behaved, no people outside my family took any notice of
me. I was just an average kid; not naughty, not better than
anyone. Somehow, psychologically, I think I copied my
mate.
I always hated my impediment. I dearly wanted to be rid of
it. I really thought I did. The only letter I could sound
without stammering was "S". I never went into a shop
without a note, and I always handed the note to the person
behind the counter. Unless all I wanted was 'half a dozen
eggs'. I couldn't say 'half' but I could say 'six'.
It seems that Dr. Cathcart (who would later become the
Head of the Mental Health Department in Victoria), and my
Vocational Master at Wesley were right in their diagnosis.
But I wasn't ready to hear it.
All that I am aware of, what Margaret Eldridge did that was
different, was convince me I was a unique person. I don't
know how that changed the subconscious desire to stammer
- to one of not stammering. Perhaps she had a special aura
of confidence which I caught. History tells us that Lionel
Logue wrote no books and did not teach other therapists.
Perhaps he, too, had an aura which he passed on.
There are many references to 'Margaret Eldridge, Speech
Therapist', on the web.
As for me, I now enjoy public speaking and do it
professionally. My advertising leaflets include:
Ed Dickinson, The Speaker of Renown, was accredited as a
Professional Speaker by the National Speakers Association
of Australia, and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of
Training & Development, a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary
International, the author of two books, and a professional
M.C. He has produced an audio CD and tape on speaking
skills, is a Freeman of Australian Rostrum (Vic.) Inc., a
member of WellSpring, the Ashburton Baptist Church, the
RACV Club, the National Trust, and an associate member
of the Graduate Union of Melbourne University.
Conclusion
Today, when I coach people in public speaking and watch
them nervously approach the dais for the first time, it's not
unusual to hear them say,
"It's easy for you. You're a professional speaker. You don't
know what it's like to face an audience and not be able to
say a word."
I smile, and sometimes share of little of my unique story
with them. Each and every one are also unique. And I tell
them so.