Glee 50 Year Hero, Antony Harker featured in Richard Bransons blog last week: "I met a man called Anthony Neil Harker on Necker recently, and his story reminded me that you can do so much more than you think you can. Anthony’s story is especially inspiring for anyone with a stutter!"

Richard Bransons blog continues: "At seven years of age, Anthony learnt that he had a severe stutter. He realised it the hard way too – up on stage at a school play, while the audience laughed and his mother cried. School was miserable for Anthony, as his fear of speaking grew larger and larger, alongside his frustration at not being able to say what he wanted to say.

As such, he left school before graduation and began working at his father’s garden centre. He enjoyed the hard work and began to see a brighter future ahead, but his stutter was still holding him back. As he told me on Necker: "I was 29 at this point, incredibly ambitious, but trapped in a body that could not speak."

"Anthony decided he would do everything we could to manage and reduce his stutter. After completing a course called The McGuire Programme, he started doing company-wide speeches and navigated his way through tough conversations with insurance companies, banks, architects, and so forth. The garden centre went on to become the third largest in the UK. However, now that Anthony has found his voice and was able to share his opinions, it quickly became clear that he had a different vision to his father.

"He decided to leave the business and put his £7,000 worth of savings into a new business as a gravel supplier..."

Read the full blog post here: https://www.virgin.com/branson-family/richard-branson-blog/a-reminder-that-you-can-do-so-much-more-than-you-think-you-can