The Real King's Speech Page #2

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at the less fashionable end

of Harley Street to meet

Lionel Logue, an Australian

speech therapist.

He was their last chance to try

to get rid of the Duke's stammer

before six months of public speaking

on their tour of the Empire.

By the time he saw Lionel Logue in

1926, he had evidently already seen

about eight speech therapists.

This man was tired.

And we are all...

..happy to feel...

..the generosity of His Majesty...

All attempts by the Duke to cure

his speech impediment had failed.

Why people stammered

was not understood,

nor was there any agreement

on how to cure it.

I think I'd got rather distrustful

of all sort of speech therapists,

or people who thought

that could help stammerers.

Say, "Ah."

At that time, there were

no theories about what caused

stammering at all.

Speech therapy was in its infancy.

It wasn't considered

part of medicine.

It was a completely

unregulated profession,

if one could even call it

a profession.

DOORBELL RINGS:

Lionel Logue had travelled to

Britain from Perth at the age of 44

with his wife and family.

He's got no medical

qualifications whatsoever.

He decides to rent rooms

in Harley Street.

He doesn't have much money, he's

just clinging to the very edge

of the road, and he opens

his practice there and starts

to see patients.

His background in Australia

was more theatrical than medical.

By day, he would be

teaching elocution,

and in the evenings

he'd be using those same skills,

treading the boards in his

amateur dramatic productions.

Lionel Logue's challenge was great.

The Duke of York was 30 and

had been stammering for 23 years.

I can remember him being quite tall.

"Hello, George, good to see you, come

and sit down, sit down over here.

"How are you feeling now?"

And it was very gentle

and very...welcoming!

George Metcalfe was nine years old

when he first began treatment

with Lionel Logue.

It started when I was three. My dad

shouted at me, "Don't stammer!"

and from then on,

I started to stammer.

It was like a tic,

but it was worse than a tic,

so if I can demonstrate,

it was, "Urgh!" Like that.

And I literally used to bang my head

on tables, if there was a table

in front of me, or I would bang

my head into the porridge

or into the soup.

Logue's record card of his

first appointment with the Duke

revealed his methodology.

He was concerned with

the Duke's physical appearance,

which he believed contributed

to his stammer.

"Well built with good shoulders,

"but waistline very flabby.

Good chest development.

"Top lung breathing good. He's never

used his diaphragm or lower lung.

"This has resulted through

non-control of solar plexus

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