SPEAKING has been a problem for as long as Alan Wyatt can remember. Not just public speaking, but any verbal interaction, from ordering a take away to answering his front door.

On his own wedding day, his brother had to make his wedding speech on his behalf, and as a teenager he was turned away from his dream job in the Royal Navy because of his affliction.

Alan is a stammerer.

From the age of four, speaking has been a trial.

His pronounced stutter has excluded him from much social interaction and instilled in him a range of negative emotions – embarrassment, guilt, shame and even self-loathing.

But the 57-year-old, from Kingswood, has improved his speech dramatically since signing up to a revolutionary project called the McGuire Programme – an organisation operated entirely by stammerers, who run confidence- building courses to help sufferers overcome their speech impediment.

"It isn't an illness, so there isn't a cure," Alan explains.

"Nobody knows what causes a stammer, but I believe it is largely a confidence issue.

"When I first joined the McGuire programme, 11 years ago, I couldn't believe the difference I saw in my speech in the first three days.

"But as part of those first three days, I had to go out and talk to 100 strangers on the street, and I then had to stand on a soap box in a busy shopping centre and make a speech in front of hundreds of shoppers."

Since that first experience, Alan has gone on to become an instructor on the programme, and even a staff trainer – instructing the programme's instructors.

"There are 600,000 stammerers in the UK – that's one per cent of the population," he explains.

"It tends to be an issue mostly affecting men – the ratio is four to one towards the men.

"That's why I found it extraordinary that until just three years ago, stammering was not considered to be a disability.

"Now it is, but more important perhaps, is the need to raise the profile of the issue – that's why I was so pleased to see The King's Speech doing so well."

The movie, which won four Oscars last week, tells the story of King George VI's struggle to overcome his stammer, with the help of therapist Lionel Logue.

"He was more of an actor than a speech therapist," Alan says.

"If I had to criticise the movie, I'd say I would have liked to see more about how the stammer shaped the king's childhood. But that said, it is a great film, and it certainly puts the issue on the nation's radar.

"For me, watching the film took me straight back to the kinds of speech-therapy session I had as a child 50 years ago. It was all about breathing. That sort of thing never helped me very much.

"But things have come on a lot since then thanks to the McGuire Programme's emphasis on confidence building. When I went along for my first session I was very sceptical, having spent more than 40 years going to every speech therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist and even hypnotist that I could find.

"But the course has helped me to get on top of the stutter. It's just a matter of learning techniques, both breathing and confidence-building techniques."

Alan suffered some social isolation as a child, growing up in Bristol with a stammer. However, when he turned 16 hope appeared.

"I was on a bus with my friends, and suddenly I found I wasn't stammering any more," he says.

"It was the most wonderful thing.

"But it was a reprieve and only lasted for six months. I got a job in Tesco when I was 17 and found that having to talk to members of the public brought the anxiety and the stammer straight back.

"I wanted to go to university, but was too afraid that it would involve standing up and giving talks.

"So I set my dreams on joining the Royal Navy, but when I went to the recruitment office in the city centre, they said, rather bluntly, that I stood no chance of getting through officer training because of my speech. That hurt an awful lot."

Alan managed to carve out a career as a cost accountant.

Soon after he met Sandra, whom he would go on to marry.

"Alan's stammer has shaped our home life," Sandra says.

"Before he went on the McGuire Programme, he was very inhibited about doing anything that involved speaking – so I had to always answer the phone and the door.

"If we went for a meal, Alan chose the table, but I always ordered the food. It's a condition that affects the entire family – not just the stammerer himself."

Even when daughter Kelly was born 27 years ago, Alan admits the stammer was playing on his mind.

"I was there in the delivery suite," he recalls. "The first thing I thought was, are Sandra and the baby okay.

"But the second thing I thought – there and then in the hospital – was, oh no it's a girl, I'll have to make a speech at her wedding.

"That's the thing about stuttering," he adds.

"It's not so much the speech that's the problem, it is the fear of the stammer. If you let yourself, you spend your whole life worrying about having to talk in public.

"Then you find yourself in a downward spiral – the less you speak, the more confidence you lose. It really doesn't have to be like this."

For more information about the McGuire Programme, visit www.mcguireprogramme.com.