Sssuffer in Sssilence

A man who suffers severely from a lisp has decided to cure the problem in the most drastic way imaginable - by simply not saying any words that contain the letter 's' in its hard-pronounced form.

Steve Sykes, 77, of Syndenham, has suffered from the affliction since birth. Instead of saying the letter 's', as in 'snake' or 'synapses', he says 'th', as in 'thoughtful' or 'mother'. And instead of saying 'c', as in 'cyanide' or 'rotten plaice', he says 'th' as in 'third in line to the throne' or 'William Rothschild'.

Steve has had to put up with jibes and mickey-taking with regard to his childish and effeminate enunication of this fairly straightforward sound his whole life.

Well, not anymore. As Steve Sykes himself says succinctly, 'eventually the joking had to end.'

'I haven't uttered one word with that letter in it for a whole week. And I don't think I ever will have to ever again in my whole long life.' At first Steve had to lower himself to the status of Steven Hawking, who is much, much cleverer than Steve but who has to write all his sentences into a computer before it can be made into sound. Steve's 1979 Penguin Mach2 typewriter was taking too long, however, so Steve began to practise at night-times in front of the mirror.

'It was hard at first. It took a really long time - hours and hours - to get good at it, but I made it eventually. I'm really happy now.'

I pointed out to him that he had just said the word 'first', which contained an 's', and that for the first time in the interview he had sounded quite silly, but I wasn't expecting him then to jump head first through a closed window on the fourth floor of my apartment block. The funeral is on Friday.