In the land of the Kiwi's
I approached Auckland international airport with a wonderfull veiw from the air. I was told that the biggest concertation of people is located on the area of NZ with the smallest span from coast to coast. This was my first veiw of islands and patches of land and it was as if I was looking at a puzzle that is being put together but a gaint, and left on the table. After reuniting with my backpack, and being sniffed by a beagle(doggies used to ensure no illegal food imigrates at the airport) I was greeted by a South-African family friend. Having 4 hours before my flight to Palmerston North she took for a ride through Auckland to Titirangi beach. Telling me about the good postal service, and that there is 11 sheep for every one person in NZ, my eyes wondered to absorb the sights. One tree hill and the famous sky tower are two landmarks that I will remember for my visit there on Wednesday.
I am currently staying with a friend at their beach house in Mount Maunganui. He is a docter and also a recovering stammerer. We met up at the Mcguire course in Palmerston North we had for the last 4 days. 40 stutterers attendend that course of which 11 were new students. Progress was very good for everybody with the new student being able to do up to 180 contacts with complete strangers after 3 days in the program and also delivering excellent controlled farewaelll speeches on the 4th day. Most of them struggle to say there names on the first day. We were privileged to have Dave McGuire himself on the course, really and extrodinary man. I made a total of 141 street contacts on the course and met 44 people during the course.
My total number of contacts stands on 264. The South-African in the Taupo bottlestore, Rudolph, please change your number from 161 to 261. Thank you
Michael sangster here from the palmy mg course, just on break at work and thought i would check out your progress.
good stuff mate keep up the good work. (Comment this)
xxx (Comment this)
It was good to meet you in Tauranga tonight. You might be interested in an article I printed in Air Flow, the quarterly magazine of the New Zealand Speak Easy Association, about Ian Taylor, who you are staying with tonight. It is taken from the speech he gave in Perth, Western Australia, two years ago at the World Congress for People Who Stutter. It is printed below.
Warren Brown
Hamilton, New Zealand.
__________________________________________________________
By Ian Taylor
I practice as a pathologist. The word pathology refers to the study of diseases. A pathologist is a doctor who specialises in the study of diagnosis of disease. It usually refers to diseases of the human body but there are other branches of pathology such as veterinary pathology or plant pathology — and specialists in speech therapy in some countries call themselves speech pathologists.
After leaving high school, despite a pronounced stutter, I decided to train to become a doctor. Six years later, I graduated with an MB ChB from the University of Otago.
After two years’ internship in New Zealand, I was directed by my employers to a remote area of New Zealand called the Chatham Islands.
This is an island about 1000km to the east of the South Island of New Zealand with a population of about 700. It was very isolated and we were lucky if we received one plane a week from New Zealand with a ship every two months delivering our supplies from New Zealand.
My role was principally one of a general practitioner but at times, being the only doctor, I was called to be surgeon, anaesthetist, obstetrician, radiologist, pathologist, psychiatrist, counsellor, dentist, veterinary surgeon and, on occasions, funeral director. There was not much scope to practise speech pathology because I think I was the only stutterer on the island.
The principal settlement of the Chatham Islands is Waitangi — just a little cluster of houses with a store, hospital, church and wharf. Some of the settlements were very isolated and you often had to practise medicine in unusual circumstances. An example was having to operate on a woman’s foot on the grass beside a runway. I think she had a foreign body in her foot.
The economy of the Chatham Islands is based on fishing — especially crayfish — and farming.
It was a very interesting experience and reluctantly I returned to New Zealand for specialty medical training. Also my new wife was due to have our first baby.
I started in the Obstetric Training Scheme but decided that was not for me when I realised for the rest of my working life that I could be up at all hours of the day and night to deliver babies.
As a failed obstetrician, I decided to train in pathology. Most people think pathologists perform only autopsies. This comes from reading Patricia Cornwell novels or watching TV programmes like Quincy, which deal exclusively with forensic pathology — the study of unnatural or uncertain death.
Pathology is a huge specialty with many subspecialties. In the provincial centre of Tauranga, we have over 250 staff, operating a 24-hour service providing laboratory testing for both hospital and community patients.
Some of the branches include anatomic pathology and cytopathology, where we examine tissues or cervical smears under the microscope to make a diagnosis; clinical chemistry; microbiology; haematology, the study of blood diseases like leukaemia; blood transfusions; cytogenetics; molecular medicine and of course forensic pathology.
Doctors who stutter are uncommon but not rare. I would not be surprised if there were about one in 400 doctors. I know of a gastro-enterologist, general practitioner, oncologist, obstetrician and an orthopaedic surgeon, all of whom stutter.
One thing about the practice of medicine is that there is nowhere to hide if you are a stutterer. At one stage you might have been able to hide in the laboratory or in the radiology-suite back room. But since I started practicing medicine, communication has become vital. You have to talk to patients, relatives, staff, meetings with colleagues, educational programmes, management, using the telephone, court appearances, present interesting cases to physicians and talk to the media, including television. I think it is very difficult but good for stutterers to work in occupations where communication is important . . .
I am the fifth of seven sons. My father was a stutterer. My second eldest brother had a stutter and interestingly my son was assessed at primary school for being a stutterer. My father became increasingly fluent with his speech as he grew older. He worked hard on his speech without the aid of speech therapists and would spend many hours reading out aloud, using what I would describe as a forerunner of smooth speech.
Dad admired King George VI, of Great Britain, who suddenly came to the throne with the abdication of King Edward VIII when he married the divorcee Wallace Simpson.
King George VI was a severe stutterer and courageously became King of Great Britain and, in spite of his stutter, became reasonably fluent.
I became aware that I had a stuttering problem when I was about seven years old. It became increasingly severe and in fact I still stutter.
I attended a short period of speech therapy for about a year as a 10-year-old child but I still continued to stutter and by the time I reached high school my stutter had deteriorated. I was avoiding the telephone and interaction in class and social situations.
My first day at high school was a nightmare. I was unable to tell the teacher my name and had to write it on the blackboard in front of the class. This was quite an embarrassing and humiliating experience.
I did received exposure to speech therapy at high school and I learnt of two American speech pathologists, Charles Van Riper and Wendell Johnson. I understand they were both stutterers. Their techniques included self-acceptance of your stutter and to modify your stutter to an easier no-block form. This gave me great encouragement. My speech improved. I knew I could train to become a doctor and it didn’t matter if I stuttered.
I have had very little speech therapy as an adult and I have to be the first to admit that this is largely self-inflicted. Unfortunately, like many people including stutterers, I have suffered badly from the too-busy syndrome and I have been too involved with my career and other activities to seek help as an adult stutterer. I am sure this attitude applies to many adults who find excuses for not obtaining help. In later years, however, I have become a little more realistic and sensible.
In 1998, I came into contact with a speech therapist who taught me the initial technique of slow smooth speech but, like many good intentions, a major expansion occurred in the laboratory. I felt under business pressure and rather unwisely withdrew from therapy.
In 2000, I read an advertisement in the local community paper about a local Speak Easy group for adult stutterers, co-ordinated by Warren Brown who is a stutterer and quite prominent in Speak Easy circles in New Zealand. He invited me to a Speak Easy meeting, which I have been attending ever since.
We meet as a group on a fortnightly basis for 1½ hours and this provides great support and helps us as individuals. It is a great relief and support to realise that other stutterers exist and you are not alone . . . I feel I have made great progress in recent years. I certainly have benefited from the opportunity of attending Speak Easy and from trying to incorporate slow smooth speech into my normal conversation. I still have many times when I relapse — especially when I am tired or under stress. For reasons that continue to perplex me, I find maintenance of continual slow smooth speech in my ordinary speech very difficult.
My wedding was the greatest day of my life. I may have looked happy and relaxed in a wedding photo but I was becoming increasingly desperate. In two hours I had to speak to all our guests on behalf of my new wife and propose a toast to the bridesmaids. This worried me for weeks and was, in my opinion, a good reason to elope.
However, a friend of mine gave me some very good advice: advice that I have found very helpful over the years.
He said: “Ian, when you start your speech, say something like this: ‘Ladies and gentleman, being a stutterer and speaking on behalf of my wife at my wedding is very difficult. It can be likened to having a baby — easy to conceive but difficult to deliver.’ ”
Well, it brought the house down and relaxed me and the audience immediately. I have used that kind of approach many times when I am public speaking and testify that acknowledging very early on that you stutter breaks down a lot of the fear associated with speaking.
I wish to express my appreciation to all the people who have helped me over the years — speech therapists and our Speak Easy group and my wife Kay, who has been a wonderful encourager to me over the years.
(Comment this)
Wat jy doen is flippen awesome!!!! Ek is sooooo trots op jou! Baie geluk met al die contacts sover en veral met al die aandag van die lugwaardinne :) Lyk my jy het dit!!!
Sterkte vir alles vorentoe. Ek gaan so gou moontlik vir my oorfone koop sodat ons kan Skype!!!
Never stop!
Baie liefde
F (Comment this)
It was nice to meet you at Ian's place, and I wish you all the best for your amaysing challenge. I'm sure you will meet lots of interesting people on your journey.
cheers
JB (Comment this)