Highlighting stammering abuse on my dad's behalf

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Mark

When a footballer was allegedly mocked for stammering recently, it made Mark Davies think about his late father's struggles. In this touching article, Mark writes honestly about his dad, and the mixed response he received when he decided to raise awareness on social media.

My dad's stammer is one of the things I remember most about my childhood.

Dad was passionate about steam railways and was at his happiest watching a steam engine in all its glory. He was something of a celebrity in the railway world, writing books and articles which were almost incomprehensible to me but which meant a lot to others. He was also kind, unrelentingly polite and an absolutely wonderful grandfather who helped to make life magical for my and my brother's children.

He was quite a distant man, seemingly lost in his own world a lot of the time, spending most of it in his office surrounded by railway paraphernalia. As a result my brother and I didn't see a great deal of him, other than when we sat down to eat. Those are the times when I remember his stammer coming to the fore. Sometimes he simply couldn't get a word out. On other occasions he'd get there, but only after numerous attempts.

When he was struggling with his speech the most, Dad would fly into a really quite scary rage. He directed his anger at the stammer, not at any of us, but we all felt it. 

She treated it as though it was Dad's fault that he stammered.

To my shame, I sometimes found the stammer funny. I feel terribly guilty about that now, but I tell myself that I was a child and no-one really explained, let alone understood, what was going on. Dad died in 2023 and I continue to yearn for the opportunity to say how sorry I am.

As time went on, Dad's stammered less. Where once it was a daily challenge, it became a rare event. He was calmer as he got older and maybe that helped. I think becoming a very loving grandfather definitely helped too.

I know that when he was a child, his mother — who was an extraordinarily abrasive and unsympathetic woman — sent Dad to various classes or therapists to try to 'cure' his stammer. She treated it as though it was Dad's fault that he stammered, just as she seemed to blame him for being profoundly deaf.

My relationship with Dad was complicated. Like most teenagers, I went through a rebellious phase and Dad hated it. We argued about most things: football, politics, religion.

Luke Ayling & the alleged abuse

Things got better as I got older, but there was always a degree of tension. And boy, did Dad hate it when I went to watch football (he was a rugby union man).

It's ironic then that I thought of Dad a great deal after a recent football match. My team, Middlesbrough, were playing Southampton. One of our players, Luke Ayling, has a stammer and has spoken with bravery about the challenges he has faced.

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Luke Ayling, during his time at Leeds Utd (courtesy of Sports Mole, via WikiCommons)

During the match, a Southampton player was alleged to have mocked Luke over his speech impediment, and it was reported in the news. The referee stopped the game and spoke to both team managers, just as he is supposed to do under football authority guidelines on alleged discriminatory language. 

Discriminatory abuse is discriminatory abuse whatever the cause.

The incident was included in the referee's match report but Luke decided not to take it further: another indication of the measure of the man. I'm not sure I would have been so gracious.

It made me think of my Dad a lot. He never talked about his struggles but it must have been intense. When he died I found a letter he had received rejecting a job application — partly on the basis of his stammer. Things have moved on, thank goodness. 

That said, the reaction to the social media post I made about it was mixed. Some said that Luke needed to get over it, or compared the apparent insult with taking the mickey out of someone who is bald or has ginger hair. I was called all the names under the sun for highlighting the issue. One person even suggested that no-one cared about my dad — something which is self-evidently untrue.

But there were many other posts praising Luke Ayling and the way he has used his fame to highlight his challenges. And a lot of people messaged me to talk about their struggles with stammering or other speech impediments.

I think the lesson of this for me is that, yes, we've made progress on issues like this, but we've also got a long way to go. Some people seem to want some kind of hierarchy of abuse, as though there's a sliding scale where some abuse is less serious than in other areas. I think that's a false choice — discriminatory abuse is discriminatory abuse whatever the cause.

Thanks to people like Luke Ayling things will get better. 

As for me, I've struggled very much with losing my dad. For all the challenges we had, I loved him dearly, and do feel sad that he suffered so much and for so long and I didn't do more to at least acknowledge that. Some may see it as too late now, but I don't and will do all I can to highlight these issues on his behalf. And oddly, it makes me feel closer to him than ever.

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