Rachel Albert

IT was a small white sticker on a wall at City Lit in Holborn in 1979, barely noticeable and easy to miss, and something that Rachel Albert nearly walked past.

The sticker, advertised the then Association for Stammerers, a little-known self-help group that had been founded just a year earlier by Sparrow Harrison MBE in his living room.

For Ms Albert, then 30 and struggling with a stammer that she developed at the age of 12, she suddenly felt less alone.

She said: “I remember the exact moment I was not able to say what I wanted to say. I couldn’t get the words out.

“I became a very introverted person but my nature was not like that because nobody heard my voice as I did not want to stammer. But after years, I realised my stammer is not me, it’s just something I do, there is so much more to me than my stammer.”

In 2001 Ms Albert launched the first Sunday Social, a monthly gathering for people with stammers, held in Garkfunkels restaurant in Holborn.

The socials ran continuously until 2012, when she stepped back. Fourteen years later the Sunday Social is returning. On March 1, around 50 to 60 familiar faces are expected to gather at a hotel in Tavistock Square.

Ms Albert said: “I call it our Sunday socials family. It’s a chance to speak to one another and feel less alone, connected by their stammer. This is going to be an extra special one, because these are people who are great friends from years ago and haven’t seen each other in a long time.”

“Human contact for people who stammer is so important. Stammering is not impersonal. You want to talk about it and meet people who have a stammer and you want to meet in a lovely place where everyone is enjoying themselves and relaxed. Everyone is in the same boat.”

The idea to restart the socials came after Ms Albert attended the annual general meeting of the British Stammering Association last November, her first contact with the organisation in 13 years.

She said: “That was the time when I thought I needed to bring my family back together. There hasn’t been anything like a Sunday social in London where a big group of stammerers get together.”

Ms Albert’s mother also had a stammer.

“She never talked to me about her stammer so I had nobody to talk to about it,” Ms Albert said.

“I was very much alone with that. I left school and went to seek help for myself. It was never spoken about. I would have loved it if she said ‘it’s OK, it’ll be OK’ but I didn’t have anybody to speak to about it.”

In 1991 after finding the British Stammering Association, Ms Albert began volunteering there, helping to push the organisation’s work with children, an area that was largely overlooked at the time.

She said: “At that time there was no mention of the children suffering in schools.

“The schools don’t know how to deal with a stammering child and there was no mention of children. They used to make me stand up in school and read and they would shout at me and ask why I wasn’t reading, because they didn’t know.”

Ms Albert hopes to run five Sunday Socials over the course of the year.

“I’d like to reach out to stammerers and tell them there is somewhere for them to go,” she said.

If you have a stammer and want to contact Rachel you can email: thenightnannyservice@hotmail.com