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Palin's centre for stammerers wins £340,000 grant
Alison Roberts9 Sep 2008
You find the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children (a title that can't help but have a Pythonesque air to it) above a shabby, unloved health centre off Farringdon Road.
The dingy stairwell and peeling paint belie its international reputation for treating children with the most extreme and intractable kinds of stammering.
And like many of London's small, unsung centres of medical excellence, for several years it has existed in a state of near-constant financial uncertainty.
Yet a chance meeting in a TV green room between Palin and Secretary of State for Children Ed Balls, who himself used to stammer as a child and still has a slight disfluency, this summer ensured the continuing survival of the centre, which is funded partly by the NHS and partly by charity. It's a good news story that deserves wider recognition, for the work carried out here is profoundly changing the lives of hundreds of disabled children in London and across the country.
“We were both visiting ITV studios on the South Bank and, as one does, happened to meet up afterwards,” says Palin, the comic actor and TV traveller. “Actually, he collared me and said he was very interested in the work of the centre. We talked for a while, and he said he'd had a stammer but had got over it.”
As a result of that collaring, in July the centre was given a £340,000 grant by the Department of Schools, Children and Families to implement an education programme in schools (“There are still teachers who don't understand stammering, who get a bit cross and tell stammerers to spit it out',” says speech and language therapist Willie Botterill, shaking her head). The sum effectively guarantees its work for at least the next few years.
It was in 1993 that Palin helped to set up the centre, in tribute to his father Edward, whose severe stammer emerged when he was a child and which he never truly overcame. Palin Snr was a stoic man, a manager in a steel works in Sheffield who shared his son's healthy sense of humour. Yet the stammer tested his “generally mellow sort of temperament” to the limit and could not help but affect the whole family.
“He could be quite the lad in the right situation and I think was actually rather a light-hearted man,” says Palin. “But he could also get very cantankerous, and sort of irascible with himself and with others because he couldn't communicate.
“I think it must have been extremely difficult for him at work to participate in quite the same way that everyone else did. The feeling I get is that he was probably passed over for promotion because of his stammer.
“If you think about it, it must be one of the worst things of all, really — knowing exactly what you want to say but not being able to say it.”
In Edward Palin's day, stammering was often perceived as the stammerer's fault, as though it were some sort of character flaw. Children were even punished for stammering.
“My mother told me this wonderful story, that he stammered because a maid jumped out on him at his home when he was little, which conjures up all sorts of dark thoughts and imaginings,” laughs Palin. “But I don't think for a minute they were very progressive in dealing with it. I'm sure it was seen as an affliction rather than something that could possibly be treated.”
Indeed, as far as Palin knows, his father was never given any form of therapy, if such a thing even existed. Yet there's great pathos in Edward Palin's attempts to treat himself: “After his death I was clearing out some bookshelves,” says Michael, “and came across quite a lot of books he must have used in the Twenties and Thirties on relaxation techniques. I think that was his attempt to deal with it.”
Though stammering isn't helped by anxiety, it's now thought that the condition is the result of physiological developmental problems, which occur at a very early age.
“The neural pathways don't develop in exactly the way they should,” says Botterill, “and that sets up a problem which is then impacted by genetics, environment, linguistics and, to an extent, temperament. It's actually a complex problem, which is why it's so important that we see children right from the moment they start
to speak.”
Stammering, like all speech problems, affects more boys than girls. “Interestingly, the ratio is about the same when they're very little but many more girls recover from it at a later age than do boys. We don't really know why.”
There is a strong genetic component, and more than half the children seen at the Michael Palin Centre have parents who stammer, or used to stammer. Despite his dad's severe problem, Palin himself, however, has never been a sufferer: “And neither has my sister, which is interesting, and lucky, because both of us felt the direction we wanted to take was into acting. Though I have heard of actors who can perform perfectly well on-stage, speaking someone else's words, and yet who stammer when they're being themselves.”
The comedian Rowan Atkinson, famous for the silent Mr Bean, has admitted stammering, and so has the pop singer Gareth Gates. The arts world's elder statesman, Jonathan Miller, used to end up at the wrong destination on the bus, since he'd ask for a ticket to wherever was easiest for him to say at the point he boarded. And Margaret Drabble has confessed that her stammering turned her into a walking thesaurus. Finding herself unable to say a particular word, she'd quickly search for the nearest synonym and use that instead.
Yet it would be wrong to under-estimate stammering as a disability. Children with problems that local therapists can't solve are referred to the Michael Palin Centre from across the country, and sometimes arrive with barely comprehensible speech.
On the day I visit, I meet a bright, confident 19-year-old called Kieran, from Peckham, who came to the centre with not only a severe stammer but also with a speech problem called “cluttering”, where words and syllables are incoherently bunched and rushed together.
After therapy, people are now able to understand him well enough — but he is off to art school anyway, where he can fully indulge his love of non-verbal expression.
People will go to great lengths to attend the centre's two-week intensive courses: one family from Cumbria, unable to afford the price of a London hotel, stayed at a campsite in Essex; another from South Wales brought their caravan and negotiated a rate with Sainsbury's at Angel to stay for a week in the supermarket's car park.
“Parents are key players until a child is about 14 or 15 and we involve them all the way in both assessment and treatment,” says Botterill. “I think parents find it hard to parent children who stammer in the same way they parent their other children. Perhaps, for example, they learn that when they tell the child off, they stammer more, and so they stop telling them off — and then all hell breaks loose with that child. It's important that parents treat all their children the same way and we help to give them the confidence to do that.”
Yet there is no quick fix for stammerers — and no cure. Children are taught long-term techniques to manage their problem but sometimes feel that the mental effort required to become perfectly fluent robs them of some other part of their personality.
“It's a bit like learning a new language. To become pretty much fluent, you have to concentrate very hard and think about it all the time. Though it gets better with time, some people have developmental systems that make it extremely difficult to master. It can come at considerable cost to spontaneity.”
Michael Palin, of course, employed a stammer to great comic effect in Ken Pile, the brilliantly bungling hitman in A Fish Called Wanda, a film that's now 20 years old. John Cleese, who wrote it, asked Palin to take the part because of his experience of the condition, but: “I wouldn't have done it had my father still been alive then, oh no. That would have been very difficult indeed.
“I do think we've got to realise that lots of people stammer,” continues Palin, “often people who are very bright and very brilliant and who have lots to say. There's no point hiding them away or pretending it doesn't happen. You're obviously not incompetent at life if you stammer, and the more we see of them, the more we hear of them, the better adjusted we all will be.” He laughs. “That's my defence of Ken, if you like …
“In this very rushed, very busy sort of world, where you often have to give account of yourself very very quickly, I do think it's important that we realise how hard some people might find some situations — and, clearly, that we find good ways to help them.”
Reader views (7)
Well done Mike
Its great you can see the struggles we have to make in life and I'm very proud you can help children who stutter severely.
I've lived with a severe stutter all my life ,and I'm 39 and have just started to enjoy life and speak near fluent ,if you ever need a hand to paint the place up I'll come down and help .
Take care
My 2 children had stutters and it freaked me out as i was scared incase they started to stutter again .
- Jonathan Ashton, Widnes, 13/09/2008 11:12
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Been a big fan of Mr. Palin's for a long time both with MPFC and on other endeavours. But, in the MPFC TV show there were many characters with whom part of the humor was due to stammering, not to mention a segment in "Life of Brian". It is truly wonderful work that Mr. Palin is doing, but how does he feel about all the laughs based on stammering? Actually, now that I think about it, I get the bit in "L Of B". It would seem to be a tribute to his Dad; like he said, when he was around people he was comfortable with, he did fine! I retract my question and how can I help?
- Jim, Hartford, CT. USA, 10/09/2008 11:09
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Congratulations on a well researched and balanced article highlighting an important subject, but I must raise one gripe. I don't think it's fair to say that Rowan Atkinson and Gareth Gates have 'admitted' to stammering. It isn't a guilty secret from their past that requires a confession. In Gareth's case, he was never in a position to conceal his stammer and so set a great example for others that you don't need to hide your stammer or yourself.
- Jemma, Liverpool, 09/09/2008 20:35
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I am 11 and I have a stammer. I went on a 2 week course at the Michael Palin Centre with my mum and dad. It has really helped me and now I can have a conversation where I am fluent. I also found out I am not the only person with a stammer. I think that people should raise money for the Michael Palin Centre because it really does help children with stammers.
- Thomas Gibbs, Puckeridge, Herts, 09/09/2008 18:46
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Whilst I don't suffer from this affliction myself,one of the most memorable persons I have ever met suffered from a serious condition of stuttering. It affected him throughout his life, including his ability to marry, hold a job for which he had immense ability at Management level and to afford a decent lifestyle.
His greatest jokes were against his own affliction.He said it kept him out of the artillery because by the time he could say fffffffire, the war would be over.
What pain he must have carried which we never knew.
Max would appreciate this recognition to his fellow suffers. Often the greatest people are not the wealthiest. Max was a great person.
- Mike, Bucks, 09/09/2008 17:00
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My wife and I along with our 11 year old son, who stammers, attended the two week intensive course at the Michael Palin Centre this summer. We got a complete understanding on the complexity of stammering and how difficult it is for someone who stammers to join in a conversation. On the course, one of our projects for the parents, was to speak with a stammer to a stranger. I did it and reported back to the group. I told them how nerve racking it was and how low I felt when trying to get my words out. Our therapist told us that that is exactly how our child feels everytime he/she trys to say a sentence. I had no idea, that that was how my son felt everytime he talked to me. The two week course taught our son, through tips, how he can control his stammering and is now able to speak fluently, when he wants to.
The team at the Michael Palin Centre are absolutely fantastic and I would like to wish them every success in implementing the education programme on stammering in all primary and secondary schools throughout the country.
- Nigel Brophy, London, 09/09/2008 16:07
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I agree with a lot of the comments in the article. I grew up with a stammer too, which still affects me a times, mostly when I have been drinking. I think you learn to think about what you are going to say before you say it, and that helps you to avoid words you know will trip you up, and also makes you calmer as if you were reading it. It is true that it can make you angrier, mainly because when angry you never stutter, nobody stutters when swearing, so unfortunately you find a level that works and sometimes that is not as calm and relaxed as you might be otherwise. I was fortunate to have a speech therapist when I was at school, but times have changed and schools don't give it the same emphasis these days, so reading about this center made me proud of Michael Palin for looking to help others when it is something he himself does not suffer with. I would caution anyone, never try to finish the sentence of someone who has a stammer, that makes us feel like an invalid that needs help, just wait, the words will come out and if not we will change them to something that will come out. Keep up the good work at the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children.
- Graeme Brown, Austin, Texas, USA, 09/09/2008 13:46
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