ASKING for elephant meat in a Malvern butcher's shop might sound frivolous, but it was a serious assignment for Stephen Foster and Kyle Vivian.

Kyle, who was then a pupil at Dyson Perrins High School, was learning to overcome his stammer with the help of Stephen, a research scientist at DERA and former stammerer.

Both have learned how to tackle the problem through the McGuire Programme, which aims to make stammerers into eloquent speakers.

Students of the programme, invented by an American living in the Netherlands, are taught to confront their stammering head-on, aided by special breathing techniques.

They start with an intensive four-day course of training and get plenty of help and follow-up support from others who have already succeeded with the programme.

Nineteen-year-old Kyle, who is now studying Ocean Science with Geography at Plymouth University, had a particular difficulty with the initial sound of 'e'.

Instead of avoiding it, he deliberately set out to use it, which is why he was enquiring about elephant meat, supported by Stephen as his personal coach.

"When you get a block, you stop and take a full breath and really attack that sound and be assertive about it," said Kyle.

"It has enabled me to feel confident about going to university. Before I started the McGuire programme I was using lots of tricks to avoid stammering, such as putting 'from' in front of the word that was difficult.

"Now I have learned to resist time pressure and speak when I want to, not when the listener wants me to."

Avoiding known pitfalls - which is not allowed on the McGuire programme - can become a way of life for some stammerers.

In Stephen's case, it had begun to cause him real problems in his working life at DERA, where he would write hundreds of memos rather than use the phone or speak to people directly.

"About four years ago, I started making excuses not to go to meetings because having to introduce myself at the start was so difficult," he said.

"As a covert stammerer you can deny to yourself that the problem is bad and then it becomes difficult for anyone else to help you."

Fortunately, he saw a television programme about the McGuire programme just at the right time and booked himself on a course in Bradford.

"It made an immediate difference," he said. "Once I got the breathing sorted out, I started learning new, good habits and tackling the situations I feared.

"It took a few months to let it sink in and then I went on a second course. After that I gave a talk at the next management meeting. DERA have been very supportive."

Now Stephen helps people throughout DERA with stammering issues, most recently helping a job applicant who admitted to the problem on his application form.

After a motorbike accident, Stephen suffered a minor relapse, when he went into a pub for a reviving drink and could not get out the word "Guinness".

Refusing to be beaten, he made 50 phone calls to pubs, asking if they were doing a Guinness promotion.

"I came out stronger and even stood on a soap box in Dublin and gave a talk on Guinness," he said.

Kyle took a similar approach after his first training course, giving a talk in a school assembly and showing a video of himself, filmed before he learned to overcome his stammering.

"You have to be disciplined with yourself. Go out and expand your comfort zone beyond friends and family, make contacts, confront your fear and have fun speaking," he said.