My Silent Pause: In memory of Hunter Adair

In memory of Hunter Adair, one of our long-standing members who sadly passed away this May, we're reposting this article which includes a free-to-download pdf of his book 'My Silent Pause'.

Hunter's book 'My Silent Pause' tells the story of his lifetime experiences as a person who stammers. In 2009 he very kindly donated copies for us to sell and raise funds for our charity. We no longer have physical copies, but in 2019 Hunter was good enough to offer to let readers download his book for free, suggesting we ask for donations instead.

If you'd like to honour Hunter's memory and read his story, you can:

Download the book 'My Silent Pause' by Hunter Adair. Please consider making a donation online.

About hunter and his book

Born in the 1930s, Hunter Adair tells the story of his lifetime experiences as a person who stammers, through being bullied as a child, meeting girls, and life at work. He also talks about the techniques he developed to control his stammer, including the 'silent pause'. 

Hunter runs the family farm near Hexham in Northumberland. He is the author of several country books for both children and adults, which he mostly illustrates with his own photographs, drawings and paintings. He also writes articles and does radio interviews about the countryside.

From the Foreword by The Hon. Wentworth Beaumont:

"The book describes Hunter's lifetime experiences as a stammerer and details the remarkably successful efforts he has made to control it. It describes the communication problems that he underwent throughout his school life and the problems with adolescence, including the all important worry over being unable to invite a girl to dance. The worries over the job interview and how to deal with farmers on, the stammerer's biggest bogey of all, the dreaded telephone. These things lead up to the impetus that made Hunter really determined to improve his communication skills, this impetus coming in the form of a hurtful insult from a bombastic farmer who had probably, in reality, thought too little and imbibed too much. Hunter carries on to describe how, with some help from a speech therapist and a considerable degree of determination, he has been able to bring his stammer under control.

'As I read this book, I felt an increasing admiration for what Hunter has achieved and I feel that this book will do much for the confidence of many stammerers. It demonstrates that a stammer need not inhibit one's lifestyle or ambition and it achieves this in the most descriptive prose. However I hope that this book will also be read by non stammerers as it will result in greater understanding of an affliction which is capable of causing great unhappiness to the stammerer but which is frequently misunderstood by fluent speakers."

This article was first published on our old website in September 2009.

Hunter also wrote a series of other books about his love of the countryside - you can download them by visiting the Scottish Field website.