Where there's a will...

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Ashley and a metronome similar to one that changed his life

Barrister Ashley Murray talks about stammering in court and the advice from a stand-in therapist that helped him pursue his dream career.

Quite simply, a metronome — the tool designed to help musicians maintain a tempo — changed my life at the age of 21.

As a young man I dreamt of being a barrister after watching, aged twelve, the Billy Wilder movie 'Witness for the Prosecution' in the early 1960s.

Living in a Lancashire mill town and watching that small screen in our family's two-up two-down terraced house, with my Dad earning just £19 per week, I was unaware that a barrier to that dream could exist.

That barrier came in the form of a very pronounced stammer which began when I was a toddler. Growing up, I operated two everyday speech lists — one of usable words and the other of words to avoid at all costs, if only to escape the pain and embarrassment of not being able to speak like other children. Even worse, my second list contained my name.

Some advised deepening one's voice or singing what I wanted to say, resulting in a sore throat or even stranger looks than normal at the local shop.

Many childhood visits to NHS speech therapists with my mother to find a solution were all to no avail. Teenage self-awareness only heightened an uneasy personal journey with my stammer dominating my identity.

At grammar school, teachers suggested I followed other careers. Words such as 'ubi' ('where') in Latin lessons caused me to stop for deathly silent minutes whilst, in oral dictation, I struggled simply to speak short assemblies of letters. In sixth form English literature, I would badly strain my neck muscles trying to speak out the parts of Shakespeare beginning with a non-usable word on my list.

American self-help library books when I was 16 had not given me any real answers. Some advised deepening one's voice or singing what I wanted to say, resulting in a sore throat or even stranger looks than normal at the local shop.

Stammering in court

Fortunately, I wanted to study and to achieve — even if others suggested I avoid anything involving communication skills. Despite them I pursued my dream and forged a career in law, which wasn't without its challenges.

I remember once at the London Bar College, when I was chosen to act out presenting a summons in my advocacy training seminar group. As I stammered heavily through it before my peers, I felt in my head as though I was shrinking into a miniscule form, capable of escaping under rather than through the room door. I could almost hear them thinking 'what on earth is he doing here?'.

...the Judge, getting rather hot under the collar as a well-known stammerer himself, obviously believed I was mimicking him.

At a docker's theft trial in Liverpool Crown Court, in my jury address I started to stammer as I was suggesting a police officer had been 'gilding the lily'. Having surmounted the 'gilding', the 'lily' was proving even more difficult to say. Some of the jurors looked uncomfortable and the Judge, getting rather hot under the collar as a well-known stammerer himself, obviously believed I was mimicking him.

• Get help for stammering at work and when job hunting

I recall my anxieties when declaring my allegiance to the Sovereign before the High Court Judge, High Sherriff and assembled family members and colleagues when I was appointed Recorder at Manchester Crown Court. A task less concerning to me than what was for several difficult minutes beforehand my tunnel vision of the first three oath words I had to say: "I, Ashley Murray…".

Then there was the time I was asked to introduce myself at a judicial seminar by the chairman circuit judge to others and I stammered on my surname — only to be greeted sarcastically by the Chair's hollow congratulation "Oh, well done".

Finding my rhythm

Let's rewind a little bit. All of the above was possible thanks to advice I was given when I was 21. Back then, with my dream seeming impossible to attain, I decided for one last time to revisit NHS speech therapy. Sitting in the clinic waiting room I had occupied so many times before, the door opened and a lady introduced herself as a semi-retired stand-in. My attempts to explain my problems revealed all she needed to know.

Her response was:
"Ashley, you've lost your rhythm. I have no doubt that as a little boy you quite early on over-thought what you wanted to say before saying it and… hesitated. If you were to listen to everyone speak as carefully as you listen to yourself, you would realise that everyone, and I mean everyone, has some imperfection in speech, whether as a stammer, stutter or just an err."  

At that, she removed from a cupboard a metronome, which began tick-tocking in front of me and asked me in time with the sound to recite the poem 'Tig-er, Tig-er burn-ing bright'. I was to break up each word throughout in the same way and to constantly practise this exercise in everyday speech whenever I could.

...I have also gained a heightened appreciation of the many difficulties others may have about themselves.

That ten minutes changed my life — and my future. I often hear that therapist's advice whenever I sense a hesitancy returning, advising me to stop and break up the word to a rhythm inside my head — hence, why stammerers can sing without any similar difficulty.

Years later, save for my oldest relatives, no-one is aware I stammered. Only on a handful of occasions thereafter has the stammer re-appeared.

I realise now my stammer has shaped who I am. I have struggled with confidence and to recognise my own abilities, but I have also gained a heightened appreciation of the many difficulties others may have about themselves.

Over five decades on at the Bar, I can, at least, say to anyone with a dream, yet faced with what appears an impossible obstacle to achieving it — 'where there's a will, there's a way'.

Read more Your Voice articles. 

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