The quack who taught the King George VI to speak
By Corinna Honan
Last updated at 9:02 AM on 26th October 2010
His speeches during the war united Britain. But it's little known that nine experts had tried in vain to cure George VI's crippling stammer. With the release of a new film, we reveal how he turned in desperation to a failed Australian actor... who saved the House of Windsor
As the date of his Coronation approached, Prince Albert was unusually jumpy. He couldn’t sleep. His jaw felt ominously stiff. The nation might be hanging out the bunting, but its new sovereign — who was to become George VI — was dreading
the ordeal ahead.
How was he going to make it through the daunting ceremony in Westminster Abbey, and then deliver an even more terrifying speech live on BBC radio to his millions of subjects across the British Empire?
Not only had Bertie — as he was known — never wanted to be King but, until a few months before, he would have dismissed the possibility as fanciful. Then, with little warning, his older brother Edward announced he was renouncing the throne in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
Which meant the reluctant new King would have to face down his personal demons — or risk making a laughing stock of the British monarchy. Not because he lacked dedication or courage, but because he’d battled since childhood with a debilitating speech impediment. The story of how he attempted to cure it is the subject of a fascinating new film, The King’s Speech, which premiered in London on Thursday and stars Colin Firth as the monarch in a role which is already being hotly tipped for an Oscar.
In truth, the King’s strangulated speech was much worse than just a stutter. He could swallow entire syllables without producing a sound — making it hard for even his father to understand him. Some words were almost guaranteed to send poor Bertie into paroxysms. The ‘k’ sound, as in ‘king’ and ‘queen’, had always been a particular challenge — an unfortunate problem for a monarch.
The King's speech defect continued to distress him. This made Bertie even more nervous, occasionally leading to outbursts of temper.
Indeed, his first big public speech a decade earlier had ended in humiliation: no one who’d heard it had failed to note the long pauses in all the wrong places as his jaw worked frantically to spit out the next word.
Now the country was buzzing with speculation. No less than The Archbishop of Canterbury had mentioned Bertie’s difficulty with speech, adding unhelpfully: ‘It need cause no sort of embarrassment.’
But Bertie, for all his doubts, knew where to turn for help at least. Only one man — the son of an Australian publican — could be trusted; only one man could guide him safely through the coming trial.
‘Send for Logue!’ he told his courtiers.
In modern times, Lionel Logue would probably be viewed as a fraud. Despite having no formal training, he advertised himself as a speech therapist soon after arriving in Britain in 1924, aged 44, with his wife Myrtle and three sons.
Granted, he hadn’t been bad at amateur dramatics in Perth (though not convincing enough to make a career of the stage). And he’d used his self-taught elocution skills to help half-a-dozen shell-shocked Australian veterans recover their powers of speech. In any case, he wasn’t breaking any rules. Speech therapy, then completely unregulated, was in its infancy.
Until a few decades earlier, doctors were treating some stammerers by operating on their tongues, killing some in the process. One doctor at Guy’s Hospital enthusiastically prescribed ballroom dancing as a cure.
Logue, a tall, good-looking man with bright blue eyes, had several immediate advantages over many of his rivals: a calm manner, common sense and an ability to teach his clients to project their voices dramatically. Taking a considerable risk, he leased a room in Harley Street and waited for clients to materialise.
The year before the Logues arrived in Britain, Bertie was getting married to the society beauty Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (better known, many years later, as the Queen Mother).
Those close to him noted that in her presence, the shy young Prince was far happier and more at ease with himself — but his speech defect continued to distress him. This made Bertie even more nervous, occasionally leading to outbursts of temper.
It affected Elizabeth, too: whenever he rose to respond to a toast, she’d grip the edge of the table so hard her knuckles turned white.
Bertie was delicate, had to wear leg irons for his knock-knees and soon developed a reputation for stupidity because of his stammer.
But what to do? By now, nine experts had attempted to cure him, and nothing had worked. His courtiers despaired. As second in line to the throne, Bertie was expected to deliver speeches as part of his daily routine.
Evelyn Laye, the glamorous musical-comedy star, was apparently the first to mention Logue to the Duke and Duchess. The Australian had helped improve Laye’s singing technique by teaching her deep-breathing exercises.
Elizabeth was immediately keen for Bertie to consult Logue. For his wife’s sake, he reluctantly agreed. So, the next day, an equerry climbed the two flights of stairs to Logue’s rented room and asked if he could help the Duke.
‘Yes, but he must come to me here,’ said Logue, with breezy disregard for Bertie’s status. ‘That imposes an effort on him, which is essential for success.’ Their first meeting, in 1926, was to change their lives.
Among the therapist’s private papers — recently recovered from family files by his grandson Mark Logue — is a card in spidery handwriting, it reveals Lionel Logue’s first impressions of the slim, baggy-eyed Duke. ‘Mental: Quite normal. Has an acute nervous tension which has been brought on by the defect,’ he wrote.
Physically, he wrote, Bertie was well-built, but with a flabby waistline.
‘Has never used his diaphragm or lower lung — this has resulted through non-control of solar plexus in nervous tension, with consequent episodes of bad speech, depression. Contracts teeth and mouth and mechanically closes throat.
‘Gets chin down and closes throat at times. An extraordinary habit of clipping small words (an, in, on) and saying the first syllable of one word and the last in another.’
Mark Logue, who has written a new book about the unique relationship between the Australian commoner and the future King, discovered that during the one-and-a-half-hour consultation, Bertie talked candidly to the therapist about his youth. It was clear that he’d always suffered in comparison to his elder brother Edward, who was charming, confident and destined from birth one day to be King.
Saviour of Windsor House: Lionel Logue, right, speech specialist to King George VI, arrives at Buckingham Palace for a garden party. He is pictured with his son and Laune Logue and wife.
Bertie, on the other hand, was delicate, had to wear leg irons for his knock-knees and soon developed a reputation for stupidity because of his stammer. On one occasion, he told Logue, he’d failed to respond when asked ‘What’s half of a half?’ simply because of his inability to pronounce the word ‘quarter’.
Even without psychological training, Logue had little trouble tracing his patient’s problems back to his father, King George V — who used to bark ‘Get it out!’ when Bertie stammered.
The treatment he recommended would be intensely physical. ‘I can cure you,’ Logue said, ‘but it will need a tremendous effort from you. Without that, it can’t be done.’
From then on, Bertie would need to set aside an hour each day. He’d have to do breathing exercises invented by Logue, gargle regularly with warm water and stand by an open window as he intoned all the vowels one by one — each for 15 seconds.
Logue also insisted they should continue meeting in his rooms on equal terms. It was a daring demand, but it ensured that the Duke and the commoner would forge a relaxed relationship.
Gradually, as Logue’s private case notes reveal, progress was made: ‘Oct 30: Diaphragm much firmer. Nov 16: A good all-round improvement. Nov 18: As he progresses, the click in the throat becomes very noticeable as other faults are cleared up. Diaphragm is now forcing air through throat muscles. Nov 20: Lower jaw became pliable.’
Bertie worked assiduously at his exercises, visiting Logue’s room 82 times in the space of just two months — and paying him £197 3s, the equivalent to nearly £9,000 today. For two years, nothing was permitted to interfere with his lessons: if he had an official engagement, he’d arrange for a break, to allow him to see the therapist.
His first real test came in 1927, when he and Elizabeth set sail on a six-month world tour which called for not only speeches but endless chitchat at formal parties. Bertie wobbled but, much to his amazement, he didn’t fluff his lines once.
In an effusive letter to Logue from Panama, he reported: ‘Ever since I have been here, I have not been held up for a word in conversation at any time. Your teaching, I must say, has given me a tremendous amount of confidence. You remember my fear of proposing a toast to “The King”. I give it every evening at dinner on board. This does not worry me any more. Yours very sincerely, Albert.’
The press started noticing the dramatic improvement in the Duke’s speech. One article from the period is head lined: ‘How well the Duke of York has trained himself to speak’.
Even so, the Duke knew he still had some way to go. So a few days after returning to London, he resumed his regular visits to Harley Street.
Logue now prescribed a series of tongue-twisters for him to practise — such as ‘Let’s go gathering healthy heather with the gay brigade of grand dragoons’ and ‘She sifted seven thick-stalked thistles through a strong thick sieve’.
As the years progressed, the tall Australian became a regular at Sandringham, Windsor and Buckingham Palace, where he would carefully go through up-coming speeches with his royal patient.
First, Logue would replace any words that might trip him up with easier alternatives. The word ‘goal’, for instance, was replaced with the easier-to-pronounce ‘end’; and ‘calamities’ became ‘disasters’. Then he’d mark up the text with suggested breathing points, and Bertie would practise the speech over and over again.
Eventually, the press started noticing the dramatic improvement in the Duke’s speech. One article from the period is head lined: ‘How well the Duke of York has trained himself to speak’. Logue, who cut it out for his scrapbook, underlined the words ‘has trained himself’.
All the courtiers knew it was Logue who wielded the real power behind the scene. Patrick Hodgson, the Duke’s private secretary, wrote to the Australian in May 1930 with an unusual request.
‘If you can persuade the Duke to try to talk to people more when he goes to functions, you will be doing a great service. He is alright at dinner but when people are brought up and introduced to him he has a way of shaking hands, but remaining absolutely mute.
Six days before the Coronation, he fluffed a number of words and became almost hysterical — though Elizabeth managed to calm him down.
‘I think it is entirely due to shyness, but it makes a bad impression on strangers.’ Then King George V died in January 1936 and everything changed. Edward took the throne but abdicated after 327 days in order to marry Wallis Simpson, and Bertie was left with just four months to prepare for his coronation.
Logue, too, knew he was facing his greatest challenge. For a month, he and the new sovereign repeatedly rehearsed the responses that Bertie would have to give in Westminster Abbey. As huge crowds prepared to converge on the capital, Logue also went through the speech his patient would have to deliver live to the empire, making many alterations. Then, the King tried it out on a microphone — his pet bugbear — which brought his little daughters Elizabeth and Margaret scampering into the room, saying: ‘Daddy, Daddy, we heard you!’
The King, now 41, continued to rehearse over the next few days, with mixed results. Six days before the Coronation, he fluffed a number of words and became almost hysterical — though Elizabeth managed to calm him down.
A record was made, stitching together all the best bits from various rehearsals, as a fall-back in case the King was unable to perform. Sensing he was calmer standing up, Logue ensured that a desk was raised to the required level.
‘He is indeed a gallant fighter, and if a word doesn’t quite go right, he looks at me so pathetically and then gets on with the job,’ the therapist wrote in his private notes. ‘There is very little wrong with him — the only big thing is “fear”.’
With two days to go, Logue was delighted to be recognised in the Coronation Honours List for his services to the King. The failed actor from Perth was now a Member of the Royal Victorian Order, which entitled him to a part in the ceremonies.
On the big day itself, May 12, 1937, Albert Frederick Arthur George, King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and the last Emperor of India, rose to the occasion in Westminster Abbey and proved a credit to his speech therapist.
The speech therapist could be in no doubt about the crucial role he had played in perpetuating the British monarchy.
At the broadcast that evening at Buckingham Palace, Logue — unusually — was so apprehensive that perspiration was running down his back. He’d been coaching Bertie for 11 years, but there was still a chance he might stumble.
‘It is with a very full heart I speak to you tonight,’ the King began in a strong, deep voice. ‘Never before has a newly-crowned King been able to talk to all his peoples in their own homes on the day of his Coronation. . .’ By the time the perfectly enunciated speech was over, Logue was so worked up that — with delicious irony — he couldn’t speak. Shortly afterwards, the Queen joined him and the King.
‘It was wonderful, Bertie, much better than the record,’ she told her husband. Then she turned to Logue, her blue eyes shining. ‘Good night. Thank you. God bless you,’ she said. Lionel Logue’s eyes swam with tears. Today, of all days, the speech therapist could be in no doubt about the crucial role he had played in perpetuating the British monarchy.
Earlier, Bertie had taken him aside. Had he succeeded his brother 12 years before, he confided to Logue, he would simply have refused to become King.
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. Лично я выбрала бы оттенок по-спокойнее. Но, что делать, мы уже не раз убедились, что она любит экстравагантые детали 
. Хулиганка, наверное 
?
(слушайте, а мы тут не офф-топим в этом треде с макияжем и нарядами? Может, в секс-символизм перенести?) 
Зачем же здесь мы собрались?! 
Ну, переводить я, пожалуй, точно ничего больше не буду пока, а наиболее интересные ссылки все-таки, с вашего позволения, продолжу выкладывать — фильм-то у нас все-таки рано или поздно выйдет, и потом, задним числом, может, кому-то интересно будет почитать, что о нем писали "у них" в прессе. 
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