Catchy Phrase Has Deep Roots for Stuttering Community

By Greg Wilson

Keep Calm and Carry On. We’re sure you’ve seen it on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter or even Instagram. Your children certainly have! And someone with it on a t-shirt has probably passed you while walking down the street. It’s a catchy meme (i.e., an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture), and it seems to be a phrase to which many persons who stutter can relate. Its first appearance wasn’t on a Droid RAZR or a Macbook Pro but in London during a time of great panic and uncertainty. And it has deep roots in the stuttering community.

Keep Calm and Carry On was a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939, several months before the beginning of the Second World War, intended to raise the morale of the British public in the aftermath of widely predicted mass air attacks on major cities. It had only limited distribution with no public display, and thus was little known. It was rediscovered in 2000, has been re-issued by a number of private companies, and has been used as the decorative theme for a range of products.

The poster was initially produced by the British Ministry of Information, at the beginning of the Second World War. It was intended to be distributed in order to strengthen morale in the event of a wartime disaster, such as mass bombings of major cities using high explosives and poison gas, which was widely expected within hours of an outbreak of war. Over 2,500,000 copies were printed, although the poster was distributed only in limited numbers.

The poster was third in a series of three. The previous two posters from the series, “Freedom Is In Peril. Defend It With All Your Might” and “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory” were issued and used across Britain for motivational purposes, as the Ministry of Information assumed that the events of the first weeks of the war would demoralize the population.

Planning for the posters started in April 1939 under the direction of King George VI, who we all remember from the epic movie The King’s Speech.

By June designs were prepared, and by August 1939, production had begun, and the posters were ready to be placed within 24 hours of the outbreak of war. The posters were intended to be associated with the Ministry of Information, and to incorporate a unique and recognizable lettering and design, with a message from the King to his people.

An icon of a “Tudor” crown (a widely used symbol of government) was chosen to head the poster, rather than a photograph. These particular posters were designed as “a statement of the duty of the individual citizen,” un-pictorial, to be accompanied by more colloquial designs.

So Keep Calm and Carry On was a wartime slogan developed by a King, who was a person who stuttered, to build morale and to lead his country through troubled times. We certainly understand why the stuttering community would gravitate toward such a positive message from an understanding King.

From the Summer 2014 Newsletter

CELEBRITY FOCUS

Lewis Carroll

The recent Disney version of Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice in Wonderland, garnered a great deal of media hype. Even though the mainstream media has not made mention that Carroll was a person who stuttered, his family history gives credence to the discovery of the genetic link to stuttering. Carroll was born to parents who were first cousins; almost all of their eleven children, three girls and seven boys, struggled with stuttering past childhood.

Bruce Willis

While the world knows Bruce Willis as an A-list actor, few know that he struggled with stuttering throughout his first 20 years.

Walter Bruce Willis was born in 1955 in West Germany to his German mother, Marlene, and his American GI father, David Willis. The family settled in David’s hometown of Penns Grove, New Jersey in 1957, and the couple has three other children.

Jack Paar

While Jack Paar is among the most prominent of the entertainers on the Stuttering Foundation’s list of Famous People Who Stutter, he deserves special recognition as he was among the first to openly address his stuttering in public. As host of The Tonight Show from 1957-1962, he spoke of his difficulties as a stuttering child and teenager, giving hope to young people.

Kenyon Martin

Kenyon Martin, the basketball sensation who was named to the NBA’s All Star Team in 2004, joins other famous people who stutter in a new brochure. The brochure - which unfolds into a small poster - is available free of charge from The Stuttering Foundation.

The poster is intended to give children and adults who stutter inspiration as they grapple with their speech disorder.

Bill Walton

From BillWalton.com

Thank you for your interest in my life long problem with my speech and communication skills. I was a very shy and reserved young man who could not speak at all without severely stuttering until I was 28 years old. Always a success in the classroom and on the basketball court, I took refuge in the things that I did well as a youngster. A straight A student, my athletic abilities covered the deficiencies that limited my overall growth and development. The game of basketball was my religion, the gym my church. It was a convenient way of avoiding my responsibilities of developing my human relation skills.

When I was 28, a chance encounter at a social event with Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Glickman completely changed my life in so many ways that things have never been the same since, nor have they ever been better. That day, in a very brief, private conversation (one way, mind you, since I literally could not speak at the time) Marty explained, patiently and concisely, that talking, communicating was a skill not a gift or a birthright and that like any skill, whether it be sports, music, business or whatever, needed to be developed over a lifetime of hard work, discipline, organization and practice. Marty gave me some simple tips that day and then encouraged me to take those keys and apply them to methods of learning that I had received from the special teachers that I had come across in my life, particularly the 6 Hall of Fame basketball coaches that I had played for throughout my career. The beginning of my whole new life was as simple as that. No gimmicks, tricks or shortcuts. Just the realization that with some help, guidance and a lot of hard work that I too could do what seemed so easy, simple and natural to everyone else, yet seemed impossibly out of my reach and comprehension.