Meals in a restaurant, university course, his own name - all were determined by Michael Richardson's speech impediment.

He tells Any White how it ruled his life, and how he finally overcame his stutter.

IT was when he started introducing himself as Andrew that he realised it had gone on long enough. He was 22, and Michael's stutter was so bad he couldn't even say his own name. "Rather than trying to force out Michael, the first name that came to mind was Andrew," he says. "For a moment I felt proud of myself because I felt I'd tricked that person. But afterwards it preyed on my mind that I couldn't even say my own name."

Michael was not alone. He tells of a friend and fellow stutterer who had a wardrobe full of size eight shoes, even though she has size six feet. Rather than risk the embarrassment of trying to say the letter 's' to a shop assistant, she would walk around in shoes two sizes too large.

But speak to Michael Richardson today and it is hard to discern any trace of a speech impediment. The 30-year-old has learned how to control his speech through participating in the McGuire Programme.

The intensive therapy course, developed in the early 1990s, has transformed his life to such an extent that it has opened up a whole new world for him. Michael, from Sedgefield, County Durham, now actively enjoys speaking and even teaches others how to overcome their own problems.

The extent to which a stutter can affect a person's entire way of thinking and approach to life is difficult for others to understand. For Michael, it started when he was at school.

"It was really hard," he says. "Every time I had to read in class it was a real struggle. Everyone else would read out a few lines, but for me it would only be a few words. It reached a stage where a teacher knew I would struggle and would miss me out altogether.

"There was always this huge weight on my shoulders and with me it was the first thing on my mind in the morning and my last thought at night."

Luckily for Michael, he had a supportive group of friends, but he still says it was a case of surviving school, rather than actively enjoying it.

As a young adult, Michael would do everything he could to avoid having to speak. "For some people it may just be a minor inconvenience, but for me it was my world," he says.

"It saps whatever confidence you have in a social situation. Rather than put myself in situations where I would have to speak, I'd hide or run away. On the occasions I had to speak, rather than trying to express the words that I wanted to use, I'd just substitute every word for a word I felt I could say without stuttering."

Ordering food in a restaurant was always a problem. Michael would often end up asking for a meal he did not like, just because he found it easier to say, and his stutter even affected his choice of career.

When it came to choosing a university course, he opted for engineering - not because it was what he wanted to do, but because he thought there would be no speaking involved. He was to be mistaken.

"It was half way through the second year that I heard I would have to make a presentation. I'd have to stand in front of the class for half an hour because this contributed to my final mark. When I heard about it I was ready to quit university."

Luckily for Michael, his mother had read about the McGuire Programme in a newspaper and inquired about it on his behalf. The information he received told him about a four-day course being held in Newcastle three weeks later.

But he was so desperate for help, he registered to take part in a course being held that week in Glasgow. What he found there was a revelation.

"What was great was that everybody else there, including all the organisers and instructors, had also had a stutter and had been through the programme.

"In the past, all the speech therapists I'd had tried their best and I'm grateful for all their efforts, but I always felt they were trying to instruct me about something they hadn't experienced and they hadn't a clue about what it was like to have a stutter."

Michael, who also attended the Newcastle course as a refresher, came off the programme a changed person

"They way they instructed it was almost like a sport," he explains. "You're introduced to the sport of speaking and the more you practice it, the easier it gets.

"I learned a new way of breathing and this leads into a new way of speaking and it's also a new attitude towards yourself as a speaker. Hopefully, you end up that you enjoy it, speaking is fun and you seek out situations where you can speak."

The difference in Michael amazed his family and friends and, with plenty of hard work, all of his fears about speaking disappeared. He sailed through his university course - presentation included - and began helping other students through the McGuire Programme.

His new-found confidence also took him abroad for the first time, something else his stutter had previously prevented him from doing.

"I always wanted to travel when I was younger, but I used the fact that I stuttered as an excuse not to. I always thought if I lost my passport or if I was in a difficult speaking situation at customs there was no way I would want to put myself through that.

"Being on the programme I couldn't use that excuse any more. Most people's reasons for travel are to explore countries or cultures, mine was just to prove to myself that I could do it." He even instructed a course while in Australia and was featured on television there.

Now working as a civil engineer, Michael is also a regular instructor for the programme. He says: "It's great helping new students, but it always helps me as well. I always learned new things on each course through speaking to students.

"It's nice to be able to put something back into the programme I felt I got so much out of."

Michael's confidence in his speaking is now so high that he even made a successful best man's speech at a wedding last year.

"I made that speech, which was a huge thing," he says. "But for me it's the small things that make all the difference, like ordering food or asking for directions. I suppose it's all the things that most people take for granted." Like being able to say your own name.

* Michael Richardson will be instructing a four-day intensive therapy course on the McGuire Programme at the Caledonian Hotel, Newcastle, from Thursday, February 19. The course costs £600 per person.

* A free information session will be held at the Dolphin Centre, Darlington, on Saturday. Other sessions will be held in Sunderland and Hexham.

* For more details contact regional director Iain Mutch on 0191-413 9100.