Stammering

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Dylan Jones on the 'utter hell' of growing up with a stutter - and how he finally overcame it: "Stammering has never been a particularly dignified affliction, tied in as it is with foppish dilettantes who wander around Wodehouse novels like accidents waiting to happen. We stammerers are portrayed as crooks, perverts, chinless wonders, maladjusted members of the underclass, or simply figures of fun. It is an affliction that rarely inspires anything but pity, or sarcasm. No one likes to stammer. It has no kudos.

For years I have been what is medically known as a covert stammerer. Having stammered since the age of five, I quickly learned to avoid the various letters and words that I began to find difficult to pronounce. If asked to identify the one thing that has caused me the most irritation in my life, I would have to point, not to a debilitating illness or handicap, but to the consonant that follows ABC."

Dylan Jones is the editor of GQ and the author of Mr Jones' Rules