SPEECH RECOVERED.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 4010, 17 August 1915, Page 2

SPEECH RECOVERED.

DUMB SOLDIER. GIVES HOSPITAL ATTENDANT A SHOCK.

Rifleman Pomtor, of tho 12th County of London Rifles, has created something of a sensation in the fourth Northern Genera! Hospital at Tancoin .

The terrifi; concussion of a shell over his head five weeks ago, as He was tending a- wounded comrade, deprived him of both speech and hearing. Tho French doctors assured him that ho would eventually get liis speech back, and also -the power of bearing in the right ear, though that of the left was gone for ever. “Since I have been in Lincoln,” he said to a “Da/ilv Chronicle” representative, “I have been following the ad-

vice they gave me in Boulogne, to keep on. pronouncing vowels, as they told me that nothing hut my own efforts would get my speech hack. J was successful the other night, -but it

wont again, next night. 1 was lying awake trying all 1 could, anti suddenly found my speech come hack, so 1 kept awake talking to myself for fear it might go again. “I folt a strong impulse to call to the night nurse, but I -nought that she migut faint, and {hen it occurred to me that early in the morning; the man would becoming round with cups of tea, so I decided to save myself up for film instead. Ho came along about hvo o’clock, and just as .ho was setting the cup on the table at my bedhead I said in my best London style, ‘Shove it down there, old son ! Then there was a son sa,ti on if you like. They say I 3i.aro been talking ever since.”