Little Bit about Me Part 4

I remember standing in the phone box on the estate, looking round me to make sure nobody was coming and ringing the operator to do a reverse the charges call to my dad. I heard the operator asking him does he accept the call and he answered "yes" in a way that he didn't seem overly keen on as it was probably quite expensive! I told him what had happened, a watered down version as I didn't even want to talk about it, really. I asked him can I come back home and stay with him for a while and he agreed.
I remember going home and telling my mum, she didn't seem that annoyed at the time but thinking back now I knew she was. I then told my girlfriend at the time who I remember just burst into tears. I felt awful leaving her. We organised my trip home, I was to get the boat from Stranraer which meant a 4 hour coach journey from a bus station in Manchester. I travelled to the station with my girlfriend and her friend. To this day I can still see her face and how upset she was that I was leaving. I felt awful about that.
I arrived home and my dad met me off the boat in Belfast. He took me to his flat and we visited my grandmother who lived nearby.
This was a strange time for me, I didn't know many people in my dads estate and I was well used to the Manchester way of living. I was walking to a local shopping centre from my dads house one afternoon and was walking past someone who just started punching me, I fell against a fence and covered my face, he continued on for a bit then ran off. I wasn't hurt at all, just shook up. I ran home and told my dad and he ran back to where it happened to find him but he had gone. I didn't realise it at the time but it was a sectarian attack, my dad lived in a protestant estate and the guy thought he was beating up a protestant. Of course he didn't know I come from a mixed family and most of my life lived in a catholic area.
My dad wasn't working when I lived with him. We really didn't have much money and relied on my grandparents a lot. I got a job in a local social club that my uncle used to drink in. I was lifting glasses and taking drinks orders.
I can remember this being the first time I noticed my speech being an issue. I would have had to shout out drinks orders to the bar staff. I struggled with that a lot, so I started writing it down and passing the notes to the bar staff instead. I remember being embarrassed about that. I worked there for a while but absolutely wanted to get back into the security of the army cadets. I remember there was a local unit near my dads house and I walked over to it a few nights but could never pluck up the courage to go in and join. I decided as I was coming up to my 16th birthday, I would join the actual army as a junior soldier. My dad took me to the army careers office in Holywood around June 1999 in Co Down. I had my first interview and was told that because of my age I would miss the next school leavers course which was to start in October that year. I was absolutely gutted because I would have had to wait at least an extra 6 months to join. I pleaded with the careers officer to see if he could swing anything for me. To my amazement he did, he said if I got a letter from the headteacher of my school stating that she was happy for me to go, they would let me start the course. The only issue I seen was that I had walked out of school in Manchester months earlier and my headteacher had no love for me! Undeterred I wrote to her anyway and asked that she write the letter, to my amazement she wrote back and agreed to let me go. I joke now that she was just happy to never see me again!

I did the touch screen test for the army and got a higher than expected score. I was told that because of this there were a significant number of jobs open to me in the army. I don't know why, perhaps sub consciously I didn't want to leave NI. But I signed up for The Queens Royal Hussars. They were a tank regiment and if I joined them I could do my phase one training in Ballymena in Northern Ireland. The regiment themselves however were stationed in Germany, but I didn't need to worry about that, yet.

I remember getting my start date for the army and being more excited that I ever was before. My dad and uncle drove me to Holywood where we were being picked up by coach. I remember stopping them at the gate and saying I want to go in on my own. I walked in carrying my bag and walked to the pick up point. Of course when I got there all the parents of the other recruits were with them and I'd just told my dad to leave. I remember feeling very much on my own at that point.

A Little Bit About Me Part 6

I spent a few weeks at my dads house prior to leaving to go to Bovington. This was a strange time for me, I had gotten very attached the Depot in Ballymena and the thought of starting again in a new camp was daunting. My flight was booked to fly from George Best Airport in Belfast to London Heathrow. Then we would travel down to Bovington on the south coast of England, by train. There were only 4 of us that had joined the tank regiments and I must say none of the 4 I was particularly close to. We arrived at the camp and it had none of the grandeur of the camp in Ballymena in my eyes. It was absolutely enormous, also. We were shown to our room and split up. I was put into a room with three other English lads that I didn't know. I felt uneasy from the outset.

The first day we were broken down into our Troops and the first element of training you do in Bovington is to learn to drive a car. What the instructors didn't know was at the time I was still only 16 and was too young to take this part of the course. When the instructors found out about this they informed me that I had to go to into Holding Troop until I was old enough to learn how to drive. Holding Troop is where people go that are on long term sickness, or wanting to leave, or just generally a misfit. I felt like I wasn't in any of those categories, I was fit, keen, and wanted to get through this. I was moved accommodation into where the Holding Troop recruits all stayed. This was a tough time for me, it was boring and we didn't do much.
We had to do the commanding officers PT on a Friday morning, what this entailed was a race around a course near the camp, the last 20 people in the race had to do remedial fitness on a Saturday. This race included every soldier training in Bovington. The first time I did it incredibly I came first. I remember the CO asking me my name, and when he found out I was in Holding Troop how surprised he looked. I think this was another example of me hiding behind fitness to impress people. I suppose a positive about living in Bovington was that I was only 2 train trips away from my mother in Manchester. I remember when one Friday we had our Friday inspection, which was delayed. I didn't get out of the camp until after 6pm. I had to travel to London from Bovington and missed the last train to Manchester from Euston Train Station. The security guard allowed me to sleep in Euston Station for the night. I remember feeling bad that I had been allowed to sleep in the station and there were homeless people just outside the shutters, looking in.

I continued for another number of months in Bovington and during this time my great grandmother passed away. She was in her late 90's and had been suffering badly with Alzheimer's for a number of years before her death. I flew home for her funeral and when I was due to go back to Bovington I felt a real sickness in my stomach and really didn't want to live in England again. When I got back to Bovington I applied to return back to Northern Ireland and serve in the Royal Irish Regiment Home Service. The instructors at Bovington did not take kindly to this and I was ostracised by many of them because of it. They finally accepted my application and I was allowed to return home to serve in the Royal Irish, phase 2 training for this would be back to Ballymena which I couldn't have been more excited for.


I arrived back in Ballymena and went to the guardroom. From the outset it was clear that what I had done did not go down well with the staff there. I had seemingly cast shame on them coming back like I did. I was put into a platoon with many of the people I was in phase 1 training with, which was comforting. There was one instructor in the platoon that took a particular dislike to me and no matter what I did I didn't do it right in his eyes. I look back now he was clearly bullying me. We did an exercise in a place called Magilligan in Co Antrim and were practicing fire and manoeuvre techniques. I was in the firing position on the ground and for whatever reason wasn't doing what he wanted me to do, he ran over and grabbed my helmet and pulled me up to my feet, as he did this my chin strap caught my nose and blood spilled out of it. I shouted at him "what the fuck do you think you are doing" his whole demeanour changed, a clear example of me standing up to a bully and the bully backed down. I continued on this course and my fitness continued to get better, but I was noticing my speech more and more being an issue. I hid behind it and I ended up the fittest person in the platoon, my runs and tests were all really positive.

The last camp in phase 2 was called Battle Camp, this was a 3 week event that was notorious for being tough, you got no sleep and had to tab from the camp beside Magilliagn Prison to Binevenagh Mountain and stay on the mountain for a number of days, then tab back down to finish it. I remember on the last day we had just marched down the mountain and were standing round on the side of a road. We were all told to get our packs on and that we were going to play "it pays to be a winner" this was another name for a "beasting" session. What it entailed was a 200 metre  race involving the entire platoon, the first 5 back do not have to go again. This would continue until the last 5 people in the platoon. We started and I just took off, I left everyone behind and came in first. This meant of course, that I wouldn't have to go again. I didn't feel good about standing there with the other 4 people so got my kit back on and ran back down to encourage the others that were struggling with the run. I must have went up and down 4 times. When I stopped one of the instructors said "well done" to me. That was the most praise I had in the 3 months I was in that platoon. The platoon was told to fall in on the road and I was asked to march everyone back to the rooms, something that normally was asked of more popular recruits.
I felt elated, I felt I had literally made them respect me, I had put up with all their shit and in the end they realised I wasn't giving up.
My pass out parade for phase 2 was again in Ballymena and I remember it was a nice day, but nothing special in comparison to the phase 1 pass out parade.

I was informed I would be joining 9 Royal Irish in Antrim. I wasn't overly excited about this, the hardship of the training depot's I had become comfortable with, it seemed safe and I knew what I had to do and to this day I missed it. Moving to Battalion just seemed like another unknown thing to deal with.

Little Bit about Me Part 5

We all got on the coach at Palace Barracks and left for Ballymena. I can remember being super excited, we all were. There were people on that bus that I am still friends with now, 20 years later. Some were chatting and others were listening to their portable cd players. I remember looking out of the bus window as it drove up the hill section of the M2 and seeing my dads flat and thinking this was it, I asked to do this so I better put my all into it.

We arrived at St Patrick's Barracks in Ballymena, also known as The Depot, it was a splendid camp and steeped in history. It felt good to be back in an army camp again, I hadn't seen the inside of one properly since I was an army cadet. I felt secure in here, this was my world. As soon as the bus door opened an instructor walked on board and screamed at us to get off the bus and line up. I had been shouted at before in the cadets, I knew what this was, but others weren't so comfortable with this and I could see them struggling from the outset. We were all told to put our mobile phones and cd players in a black bag, we wouldn't need them for a while.

We started off with around 60 people, a huge platoon but I think we lost at least 5 in the first week. Things were tough and we were after all, just children. In fact, I was reliably informed that at 16 and two months I was the youngest soldier to ever pass through the Depot. I was very proud of this record and to my knowledge it's never been beaten. When I first started training my fitness was very poor, I remember failing my basic fitness test which included a certain number of sit ups, press ups and a 1.5 mile run in under 13 minutes. I smoked and didn't have a good diet prior to starting the course and it showed early on. One thing about me is that I am very proud and do not like looking bad. I would have trained in my own time at night and did my own runs in order to get my fitness up to speed.  I began to improve drastically, I went from being in the last 10 on every run to being in the top 3 on a regular basis. My PB on the 1.5 mile run was down to under 8 minutes. Where I really excelled was when tabbing, tab stands for "tactical advance to battle" which meant walking and running with weight on your back. I seemed to find this easier than most in my platoon and it was appreciated by my instructors. Someone had told me that to get through phase one training you needed to be fit, so I threw my all into fitness. It masked the fact of my poor speaking, I could impress people with that as I wouldn't be able to do it with my communication skills. This was just another example of how I would hide away. I remember one instructor making fun of my speech, it's funny how all the great things I did on that course get quickly forgotten and that one incident is imprinted in my head.

We had weekly inspections on the course on a Friday, one of these inspections was particularly important as we were all able to go home for the weekend. We had only been home once since the course started so we were all super excited to get this weekend off. I felt like a break from the 6am starts and being shouted at was needed. The only stipulation was that you had to pass this inspection. Inspections were broke into 2 parts, you had block jobs (meaning cleaning the block where we lived) and then your own personal kit and locker would be looked at. The block jobs were everyone's responsibility, your own kit was yours. I remember going to town on this inspection. I cleaned absolutely everywhere. I remember one of the instructors having to tell me to climb down from a chair in the hallway as I was dusting a light. One thing I didn't do, was check inside my cup in my locker.. When the inspection came our platoon commander was very impressed with our room and I thought I was well on my way home! Soon as he lifted out my cup my heart sank, he rubbed his finger inside with his white gloves on, then showed me the dust. He threw the cup down on my bed and snarled, "you're going nowhere this weekend". I could not believe it. I went to the bathroom and cried my eyes out. I watched everyone getting ready and leaving and I had to stay in Ballymena on my own for the weekend. It was funny, I felt like such a failure but it really taught me a lesson. It never happened again in my army career, I always passed inspections.

People continued to leave the platoon, I have to admit though when someone left it gave me a boost to keep going and that I must be stronger than the ones leaving. I feel bad about feeling like that. I never considered leaving, not once. This was everything I had. The ones that were leaving were going back to their towns in NI, to their friends and family that they missed. I saw it that I didn't have that, I didn't have that to go back to. I would go back to being nobody and have nothing. I did have family of course, but there was just something missing with my mum, brother, and sister being in England.

I passed my phase 1 and my pass out parade was held at The Deport, I have to say this was up until that point, the happiest day of of my life. I had actually achieved something that so many people can't and won't put themselves through. All my family came including my late grandfather. I have a great picture of him and me on that day and he was so proud of me. My granddad was the greatest man I ever knew, the epitome of decency. He would have given me anything and I respected him.

I got a few weeks leave after the course and had a flight booked to England to a place called Bovington to do my phase two, where you were taught to drive tanks.

Little Bit About Me Part 3

My mother, sister and her new partner joined us in Manchester, and we all had to live in my grandmothers house for a period of time. My grandmother had a daughter younger than myself, who suffered with Downs Syndrome. It all got a bit crowded in that house. There was a lot of alcohol involved and I remember my mum and her new partner would fight after drinking. My mum had lost the love of her life and I feel like nobody was able to replace him. My mother would also fight with my grandmother on ocaasion, they had a difficult past and my mum grew up living with foster parents.

After a period we moved into our own house. It was great to get our own space. I remember we moved into the house before our furniture arrived, so we basically had nothing for a while whilst we waited on the furniture delivery.

We stayed in this estate for a number of years. It was a grim place and didn't have a nice feeling about it. Not what we were used to, certainly.

My grandmother moved back to inner city Manchester, so we moved again to be with her. We moved in with her again, it was in an area close to Moss Side. Moss Side was infamous for gang violence in the 1980s. I remember encountering people from different races for the first time. I became good friends with a mixed race boy from my class who lived near me. It wasn't ideal though as again, we didn't have our own house.

We finally got another house, it was a new build council house in another estate close by. This estate was again, a tough place. I had to quickly become streetwise here, if you didn't you would quickly become a target. I found refuge in an unlikely place, I joined the army cadet force. They had training nights every Tuesday and Thursday. Then on some weekends they had camps. I have to say I loved it. It gave me purpose, something to part of. I made great friends and the trips away were great fun. I spent a number of years in the army cadets. My mum would comment on how dedicated to the cadets I was. I’d happily spend hours in my room polishing my boots and ironing my kit instead of playing with friends. I met my first girlfriend in the cadets and she would visit me a lot form another part of Manchester. Sadly for me it ended badly in the cadets. On my final annual camp I was put into a platoon with an instructor from another unit. I was around 14 at the time. We were on parade and myself and a friend of mine were laughing about something. The instructor called me out to the front of the platoon and told them all to about turn, (so they were facing away from me) he then slapped me accros the face. I can remember feeling totally shocked, but I didn’t cry. I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of that. I didn’t tell any other instructors about it but I did tell some friends who then did. Although nothing happened to him, as far as I was aware it was brushed under the carpet. I do remember him being overbearingly nice to me for the remainder of the camp.

Shortly after this we were at another weekend camp in a place called Ramsbottom. Myself and friend got drunk and did some silly stuff, I ended up taking a bike from someones garden near the camp and was riding it around the streets at night. I left the bike back but my instructors heard about it and I was called in to see my detachment commander. I was given a fair telling off and was kicked out of his office. I remember thinking that it was all a bit of an overreaction at the time.

When I got back home we were due to go on Easter camp. This camp was one of the best camps you can do in the cadets. It's for 4 days and was always great fun. I left for the camp on Friday with my friends on the bus, and arrived in Wales on the Friday evening.
The next morning I was called into see my company commander. I never could warm to him, he was a cold character who we were all scared of. I remember being marched in in front of him and thinking "what have I done now?" I walked in and he spoke for only a few moments and said we are sacking you because of what happened in Ramsbottom. I couldn't believe what he was saying to me. My eyes filled with tears. You are going home now so pack your stuff. They had brought me there, a 14 year old child, drove 2 hours the day before, just to sack me and send me home. When I think of that now I am absolutely horrified at how they handled it. I was taken home by two adult instructors, they made it clear on the way home they didn't agree with how it was handled. I got home on Saturday afternoon and told my mum. I was absolutely heartbroken. The Cadets had been my escape from everything, from all the other mad stuff that had happened to me. Then it was taken away like that. I decided I would fight my way back into it. I wrote a letter to the Company commander, pleading with him, offering the most sincerest of apologies. Told him how much the cadets meant to me and the letter was ignored. I often think about him and what must have been going on in his own life for him to just ignore me like that. I feel like if I were in his position I would have respected that person enough to at least reply to the letter. To this day I think they wanted rid of me before I could tell the wrong people about the instructor hiting me a few months before.

When I couldn't get back into the cadets I spent more time on the street. I would run about and was mixing with the wrong crowd. Up to all hours and generally getting up to no good. There was a gang had moved into a flat near where my grandmother lived in Hulme. You knew to stay away from them as they were bad news. I was riding my bike past their flat one day and one of them came out and stood in front of me. I knew him to be one of the main ones in the gang and I couldn't do anything if he wanted to beat me up. He pushed me off my bike and rode off on it. It's weird, I wasn't even that bothered at the time. I had lived in Manchester for a number of years and had at least 3 bikes stolen from me in that time. It was the norm. I walked to my grandmothers house and went in to see her. To say she was a character is an understatement. She had lived in Manchester for 45 years at least at this stage and still spoke with a broad Belfast accent. She drunk Bells Whiskey and liked to sing songs after a few. I loved her very much and we were always close. I told her about the bike and she just stood up and walked out, straight round to their flat. She demanded the bike back from them and to my amazement, they gave it to her.
I was happy enough and a few days later I was riding the bike past their flat again and another one of them shouted out the window for me to come up. I was terrified as I knew what it was. I went in and he closed the door and started punching and kicking me. I remember him getting a knife and making me put my hand on a table and stabbing the knife really quickly in-between my fingers, he stopped before he missed and the knife went into my finger. I managed to get out of the flat and ran home to my house. I knew at that stage I needed to leave Manchester, I didn't want to be there anymore I felt unsafe and was going down the wrong road.

I called my dad in Northern Ireland..

Little Bit About Me - Part 2

After my stepfathers murder my life would never be the same again. I remember being shipped off to my aunts house in another part of Belfast. Much to my dismay, as my brother got sent to my dads house which was far better I thought. I can't remember how long I stayed there for, it seemed like weeks but could have been days. I can remember hating every minute of it, though. I can still feel the sick feeling in my stomach being away from my mother. She has a kind and loving way about her that I craved and when I was away from her I hated it. My aunt is nice, but she wasn't my mother, she didn't make up for me not seeing my mum. I also missed my older brother who wasn't with me either, we never spent time apart. We fought like most bothers did, but we loved each other very much. Not being with him was like losing part of myself at a time when I needed him most.

After the funeral we were all reunited and moved into a facility ran by the catholic church in South Belfast. We all shared a single room and a communal kitchen. I vaguely remember my mother complaining when someone would use our food. Also the kitchen had a funny smell to it. We were made to go to lessons with the nuns about the bible and catholic teachings, it was all very tedious I thought. I must admit though, the nuns treated us so well and I have no bad words for them at all. They were kind people and seemed to genuinely care for us. When I see a nun now I always remember this.

We moved into a flat near the facility after a period of time. The flat was really nice I must admit. All newly refurbished and in quite a nice area. We also went to a lovely primary school and I made some nice friends. I always felt I was different, though. My mother was heavily pregnant at this stage. I remember her going into labour and myself and my bother not having a clue what to do. I think we stayed with a neighbour while she went and gave birth to my sister. My sister was born and her father had been murdered only months before. This fact has really disturbed me ever since, the fact she never knew him at all is absolutely heartbreaking.

My mother met someone else after a time. He was ok, but nobody compared to the man we lost. My grandmother lived in Manchester, and my mum made the decision that we would move there. She wanted to get us away from the troubles in Northern Ireland. I also think my mum yearned to be with her mother after years aport. I remember being super excited to go to Manchester. My brother and I went there before my mother, sister and her partner, so that my grandmother could organise us into school. I remember it was my first time on a plane, my brother was sitting beside me during take off. As soon as the plane started hurtling down the runaway I was absolutely terrified. I remember my brother hugging me and it was a great comfort.

My grandmother lived in a council estate in North Greater Manchester. It was a rough place and very different from leafy South Belfast. I remember starting school and everything seemed so alien. I might as well have been on a different planet. The excitement of moving there was slowly disappearing, I began to hate it.

When I think back to these times I don't ever remember my stammer being an issue.

Little Bit About Me - Part 1

Hello everyone.

I have wanted start publishing a blog now for some time. I feel I have a story to tell, that may help people in a similar situation to myself. Whilst also helping me too. I believe in my heart there is a explanation to stammering and this lies within each of us. I have spent my life trying to "fix" myself. I don't need fixing, fixing would suggest there is something wrong with me, there isn't. I am perfect the way I am, we all are.

I am a Landmark Graduate, Landmark is like a University for life, and I feel like its work could help many people get to grips with understanding stammering. If anyone would like any information on this please just ask and I will answer any questions you have.

I have had a stammer for pretty much as long as I can remember. My mother tells me it started around 7 years of age. This timeframe would be around the time when I woke up in bed to the sound of a number of loud bangs, and to a really strong smell of smoke. I didn't know at the time but it was the sound of my stepfather being shot dead whilst in bed beside my mother. I am from Northern Ireland, a place when in 1990 this was unfortunately, all too common.

My mother was never the same after this event, this came around 1 year after she lost my baby brother to cot death. My mother is the strongest person I know, how she survived is simply incredible.

Back to the start

I was born in a small town in Northern Ireland called Carrickfergus. Then spent the first few years of my life living with my mum, dad and older brother in a large housing estate in Newtownabbey called Rathcoole. I don't remember much about this time, it's all very clouded.

My mother and father had a turbulent marriage and they spilt up after a short time. My mother met another man after they spilt up and we moved to South Belfast in quite a nice area off The Ormeau Road. I quickly bonded with my mothers new partner and I looked up to him a-lot. He was a tough man and a real protector of this family. He was a bricklayer by trade and would have taken me to work with him on occasion, which I loved.

In 1989 my mother and stepfather had another baby son, he died after only a few months whilst sleeping in his cot in my aunts house in West Belfast. I remember my father (who we were visiting at the time) telling us in his bedroom. My brother and I broke down and wept for a long time. We did attend the funeral but I do not remember much about it, except the tiny white coffin.

Only a number of months after this event my stepfather was murdered. He was murdered by a group called the UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters). I think this event was the catalyst for my stammer. I believe on a subconscious level I created an act where I need to "hide" from things, hide like I hid that night in my bed as a scared child.

I will continue this story in another post.