"This is how some people talk" says STAMMA charity as it urges acceptance and space after Lee Mack gag

STAMMA, the British Stammering Association, the UK national charity for people who stammer (or stutter) and those that support them have spoken to PeopleWorld about why more acceptance and space is crucial.

Jane Powell, the CEO of STAMMA, has said that the media often miss the central point around stammering.

"We’ve had on the one side, Open All Hours, A Fish Called Wonda, and all the jokey stuff about it and ‘isn’t it funny?’," said Powell. "And then on the other side the way that the media have portrayed stammering as ‘Here’s how you can overcome your stammer’.

"Breathing techniques and you can start to talk normally and there you go. And the focus when they’re asking about stammering is always 'we need to understand it so that people can learn to overcome it'. It all misses the central point, which is: this is how some people talk. That’s how they naturally talk."

Powell's comments come after Lee Mack 'ridiculed' and mimicked stammering on the TV panel show, Would I Lie To You? Mack mocked his co-star Rob Brydon when he stumbled on the word, 'She,' during Friday's episode of the BBC programme.

He proceeded to compare the host to Ronnie Barker's character Arkwright from the 1970s and 80s sitcom, Open All Hours, who was depicted as having a stutter for comedic effect.

"What we’ve got is Open All Hours continuing to air so you’ve got people like Lee Mack referring back to it because it’s current, people don’t see the problem with that being the big, noticeable programme on stammering," continued Powell. "That’s the representation of people who stammer, ‘Oh, isn’t it funny.’

 "(Lee Mack) wouldn’t make a joke about anything else in that way. And that’s my point, people don’t really see stammering in the same ballpark as everything else. I don’t think he thought about it at all. I don’t think he meant for it to be offensive."

Mack's representatives and the BBC have been contacted by the MailOnline in regards to his comments. He hasn't responded so far.

"For some people they can learn to use breathing techniques and sound fluent," said Powell. "For some people it’s easier to mask that than it is for others. It takes a lot of effort and can be quite exhausting.

"But the question is: shouldn’t we have a society where if that’s how some people talk then why can’t we just accept that?

"The main message we would like to really push back is: this is, literally, how some people talk, so accept it. Accept it and make space for it."

In the UK, it is estimated that stammering affects around 1 in 100 adults, with men being around 3 to 4 times more likely to stammer than women.

The number of people with a stammer could be larger than figures suggest, as Powell explains: "We think (stammering) affects one per cent of the population but every time we’ve done polling we’ve come up with higher figures. We can see that lots of people manage to mask their stammer.

"I think that we need to make stammering more visible so people get used to it and that’s just how someone speaks – they’re not nervous, it’s just how they talk. If we can achieve that and that being seen as ‘normal’ for some people then people can come out and acknowledge that they stammer and stammer when they need to and stammer when it happens. Rather than trying to swap out a word in advance and think about how they can avoid a situation where they need to speak or arrive late so they don’t need to introduce themselves: all of that exhausting work to hide a stammer."

You can learn more about the work and events of STAMMA at: www.stamma.org