By Cathy Power
RORY West has come a long way. For a start he moved from his native Ballyfermot in Dublin, five years ago, to make a life in Newbridge with his wife. He has had two little girls: Zara (2) and Lottie, who is just three weeks old and his career has advanced from apprentice fitter to supervisor with Irish Rail.
His more significant journey, however, has meant his overcoming an overt stammer, which held him back in all sorts of ways. In the week when The King’s Speech hits Irish cinemas, telling the story of how King George VI of Britain overcame his stammer and dealt with his sudden ascension to the throne, with the help of his speech therapist, Rory speaks about his own struggle to cope with his stammer.
“It wasn’t so bad in primary school but in secondary and during my apprenticeship it began to affect me. But it wasn’t until I began to work in Irish Rail that it began to hold me back,” he told the Kildare Nationalist.
Rory had a severe stammer and so avoided speaking to people. “I was trying to make up for the stammer by being a really hard worker. I was chosen as National Apprentice of the Year in 2004 but still I was avoiding talking to people,” he said.
Then he was offered the job of team leader and then as supervisor, so it was hard to avoid his “worst nightmare”: the telephone. “It could take me two or three minutes of stammering to say my name,” he explained, a problem common to many stammerers. “I sometimes used to say my name was John, because it was easier,” he added. This avoidance is one of the tricks used by those with stammers to cope. “Someone could go into a shop looking for a Mars Bar and come out with a Snickers,” he explained, “just because when the moment came they could not bring themselves to say “Mars” in the shop.”
Rory was so inhibited by his speech impediment that he even had his wedding vows adapted so that he had only to say “I do” and “I will” rather than repeat the whole script at the ceremony.
His parents had tried to help and he had speech therapy for eight years, but he says, through no fault of the therapist, it was not the answer.
His life changed after he had completed the Maguire Programme, for people who stammer. “It is all to do with costal breathing,” he explained. “The Maguire method is not a cure but a way of coping. It combines technique and psychology to help people.”
Rory said that The King’s Speech was “fantastic”. “I can really relate to what he was going through, his frustrations,” he said about the film in which the speech therapist taught the king breathing and assertiveness techniques.
Rory admits that he shed a tear at the film and agrees that Colin Firth, who plays King George VI, deserves the Oscar for which he is being tipped for his performance.
Rory is now a coach on the Maguire Programme and a course instructor intern. He will lead a support group in Newbridge from 26 January, for members of the Maguire Programme, as part of its aftercare service.
“It changed my life and it is great to work for others now,” he said, citing that he knows of people waiting years for speech therapy from the HSE, and private sessions with therapists cost about €100 a time.
“In that context, the €1,100 for lifetime membership of the Maguire Programme, is cheap,” he said.
The group for members will meet every second Thursday at the parish centre in Newbridge from 7 to 9pm and you can hear Rory speak about his experiences on Newstalk 106 tomorrow morning (Wednesday 19 January) on the Tom Dunne Show at 11am. He also did an interview for KFM recently, another indication of how far he has come from the days when he avoided speaking because of his stammer.
For more information about the Maguire Programme log onto www.stammering.ie or contact Joe O’Donnell on 086 3429602 or 074 912 5781.