Just over a year ago I was in my local sports shop full of excitement. I had seen a tennis racket online that I really wanted to buy; it was the perfect weight for me and it was used by a few of my favourite players.
When I went to tell the shop assistant what I was looking for, my worst fear happened : “Hello there, I’m looking for a B-… sorry a B-…. “. My brain was screaming BABOLAT!!! I’m looking for a Babolat tennis racket! I didn’t leave the shop with it. Instead, I spent £110 on a racket that I didn’t want and was too heavy for my wrist. I drove home with my new racket and a massive sense of frustration and defeat.
Not a lot of people know that I stammer. I can speak quite fluently and I love talking to people. That’s because I’m a covert stammerer. This means that I’m constantly switching words when I speak so that I don’t ‘block’. This generally works quite well unless, of course, you can’t switch the word i.e. names, places, tennis rackets…
The fear of being caught out is immense and can lead to some pretty odd behaviour: ordering a latte when you actually want a cappuccino, ‘forgetting’ friends’ names, ordering the same food as the person next to you to avoid that really difficult word, and coughing before you say ‘yes, miss’ because today you can’t get ‘y’ out.
But to comedy… as you can imagine a stammer can lead you to be quieter than other people. It means that you watch the world as a kind of outsider while still desperately wanting to be on the inside, so you become a great observer and listener, storing it all away for future use to combine with a ready well of frustration, anger and bitterness. Comedy heaven!
My stammer really took a hold in primary school – when I was around 10. As luck would have it, Dead Ringers was on at the time where comedians would do impressions of various celebrities and I absolutely loved it! I’d go and practise my own impressions and listen intently to different accents so that I could get my impressions spot on.
After two hours of relative silence in the classroom I’d then perform for my friends in the playground. They would lap it up! For the first time I had a crowd who were listening to what I was saying and were laughing with me. I loved this reaction and the momentary release from tripping over my words.
I’ve never really had an urge to be a stand-up comedian but I love to tell jokes and make people laugh. When I thought of something funny, I would write it down and then think of an ideal situation for it. Over time this turned into me writing sketches and funny stories, and then eventually full sitcoms – and I’ve managed to have some success over the years.
One of the biggest frustrations of having a stammer is not being able to say exactly what you want, when you want, which is why writing became the perfect outlet for me to poke fun at the world and say my piece- exactly how I wanted to say it. But above all, I love to make people laugh!
This desire to express yourself applies to everyone, people do it through music, vlogs/blogs, Instagram, the comment section on YouTube etc. It’s natural to want to be heard, which is why stammering can be intensely emotional at times when you feel like you’re constantly misrepresenting yourself.
But I owe a lot to my stammer. Without it I might not have developed my sense of humour and love for writing comedy. I’ve also realised that nobody is really on the ‘inside’. It’s a false construct, there to make us aspire to something we can never have. And anyway, there’s more room outside – and the company’s better!
It’s International Stammering Awareness Day, to find out more click here!
