January 1, 1970

All his life Churchill had a speech impediment which didn’t help matters either. He couldn’t pronounce his ‘s’s’ properly; not an obvious advantage for someone wishing to make their mark in politics – and speech-making. If you listen to his speeches you can hear this clearly.

But a speech difficulty clearly didn’t stop Churchill from becoming a great public speaker. He wasn’t one to give in – and anyway early in his career he claimed that it wasn’t an issue.

But he did consult a well-known speech specialist in 1897 who felt that ‘practice and perseverance are alone necessary’. Churchill persevered, working on his pronunciation diligently.

Did Churchill stammer? No, he probably stuttered as a result of having to try to avoid using the letter ‘s’ in his speech. And he paused and hesitated before he spoke some words – usually those that began or ended with an ‘s’ – but developed these pauses and unusual pronunciation into an idiosyncratic intonation and speaking style.

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He mispronounced ‘Nazis’ as ‘Narzees’ to great effect and advantage.

Read more about his stuttering – or lisp – here.

Later in life, Churchill wasn’t always up to the intense challenge of making a speech; it was very demanding work, both in terms of preparation and delivery. But he always rose to a challenge.

In 1953, Churchill suffered a serious stroke – carefully concealed from the media and the public – which affected his left side and impaired his speech for at least two months. But he rallied sufficiently to attend the Conservative Party conference in Margate in October 1953. In a masterly display of resilience and strength, he gave an impressive speech on 10 October 1953 to his party, having regained almost entirely his former fluency and passion (few in the audience noticed any change).