How to help Gareth with his stammer

Gareth Gates has become known not only for his singing voice but also as the UK's most famous stammerer. With a £750,000 contract with Pepsi, the spotlight is now set to be full on him - but how will he cope?

Walter Scott, 27, is also part of the one per cent of the population who stammer, and knows the problems Gareth faces. Even if he were gasping for an ice-cold beer, Walter would never say the b-word. He might say "lager" or "ale", but he'll avoid the word "beer". And I can see why when he demonstrates how this insignificant little word affects him. It takes several moments of facial contortions, deep breaths and sheer determination to spit the word out.

Walter - who is related to the novelist Sir Walter Scott - has stammered for no apparent reason since he uttered his first words as a baby. He has tried speech therapy, breathing exercises, yoga and even correcting his posture - to little avail. Now he is finally learning to live with his predicament more comfortably having been "de-sensitised" to his stammer on an intensive course at The City Lit adult education centre. He is also writing a book to help others understand how those who suffer feel about themselves. "The shift in the tongue, lips and soft palate is so complicated that once you've had a problem on a certain word, you are convinced you will do so again," he says.

"Speech is controlled by the supplementary motor area of the brain and getting anxious about a word kicks off activity in this area, sending it into overdrive. That's how you end up with particular block words. But stammerers become very cunning and avoid certain words, and phrase sentences in a particular way in an attempt not to get blocked.

"I'm sure Gareth would have been doing this, and I hear he is also being taught the Maguire Programme, which trains you to change the way you breathe. These aids can help in the short term, which is why he appears to be speaking fluently when interviewed on TV. But, as we could see on Pop Idol, when he hits a word he may have wanted to avoid, nothing controls the stammer. At this point, all his mental energy will home in on getting that word out and, believe me, a bad stammering situation is mentally and physically exhausting. You end up with throbbing temples, an aching throat and tension throughout your body."

Despite a question mark over how Gareth is going to cope as an endlessly interviewed teen idol, Walter is not surprised that he appears unfazed by the limelight. Other famous stammerers include Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe, Dr Jonathan Miller and Nicholas Parsons who, Walter is convinced, shared the urge to push themselves into the limelight. And this opinion is from personal experience-After a difficult time at Eton, where pupils are expected to read aloud endlessly and express elaborate opinions on all manner of subjects, Walter was also determined to prove his worth in public.

"When I first went to Eton I found myself in situations so daunting that I would do anything to get out of having to speak in front of an audience. I had some ideas that I was desperate to voice and I would agonise over this. I became very frustrated. Then there was the problem of girlfriends. I liked kissing, but I didn't want to talk to them.

"However, by the end of my time at Eton I realised that reading passages out loud or reciting from memory was rather like singing is for the stammerer. One is naturally having to take regular breaths and you don't have to pay attention to what you are saying because it's a set piece. Talking to a crowd is also far easier than face to face with one person because you're not talking to anyone in particular. So, buoyed up by some good experiences reading aloud at school I decided to push myself into the spotlight as a public speaker, and ended up as chairman of the Student Union at Northumbria University, and I was able to be perfectly fluent doing this. It gave me confidence and a real buzz."

However, Gareth Gates's prospective interviewers should take heed of Walter's advice when he says that on a onetoone basis, avoiding eye contact and butting in to try to finish a laboured sentence are the worst things you can do. Walter says: "We are likely to feel that the person we are talking to is getting bored, irritated or even thinks we are stupid. People assume a stammerer doesn't want you to look him in the eye because he may be embarrassed - but that couldn't be further from the truth."

Details of speech therapy at The City Lit: 020 7242 0224. The British Stammering Association: 020 8983 1003.