Tourette ticking: rhyming, singing and clucking

The truth is that while only 8 per cent of people with Tourette's have the 'swearing' variety - or what the professionals like to call 'Coprolalia' – the condition itself comes in many different shapes and forms, rather like the people affected by it. Of course, the media prefers to concentrate on the swearing type because, well, let's face it, random swearing is funny - unless you're the one who can't stop doing it. Then it's not something to joke about.

Yet the media are also missing a trick or two, because there are so many other ways in which Tourette's may choose to express itself in a person.

Often, TS feels like an overwhelming desire: a need to say or do something that is highly inappropriate to the situation you find yourself in. That's what can make it such a cruel condition, and one that appears so unbelievable. I tend to liken my Tourette's tics to wanting to cough in a location where you desperately want to remain silent. You can squirm your way through and if you're lucky you can get past the tickle in your throat, but you also know that you're going to have a good coughing fit when you get out of there.

My TS tends to be expressed through the sounds I hear all around me, which I then echo back with amazing accuracy. I copy whistles and alert sounds from my computer, and the great sounds of a dial-up modem can sometimes come out of me too - although since the broadband takeover this is not as regular as it once was.

Jennie's chickens, who are also the source of one of her tics      

Because I keep chickens, I've also been known to make chicken noises. Luckily, this doesn't appear to offend anyone except … well, maybe another chicken. But all those I've met quite like it, and on one occasion I even got a male peacock to strut his stuff in response to a performance of my peacock calls.

I have singing echolalia too, much to the amusement of my friends and family. Echolalia is the technical term for when a person repeats or 'echoes' back words or phrases that someone else has just said. The difference in my case is that this is done in the form of song. I will sing back conversations to people, but have no idea what will come out until the tune is done. These songs are often performed in a kind of musical theatre-style libretto to accompany an activity, complete with over-articulated consonants and earnest tones.

People have asked if I know what I am going to sing before it comes out, and the truth is that it's as much of a surprise to me as it is to everyone else. However, the word 'badger' does seem to regularly feature, presumably because of my nickname – Badger. There's often a lyrical theme of these animals heading or going to the west, although I have no idea why. It's possible that the Pet Shop Boys are an influence, as they were my favourite band as a kid, and they have sung a lot about 'going west' and 'West End Girls'. But I truly have no idea why I sing such things and, most especially, why I sing them at all.

If I'm not making up random song lines about badgers heading west or wearing crowns - “Come to the western side of town, where there’s a badger in a crown!” - then I'll sing popular songs that have been stored away in my head somewhere, but simply replace key lyrics with the words 'badger' or 'schmaow' or whatever my latest ticking word happens to be. I'm In The Mood for Schmaowing, for example, is much more fun than The Nolan Sisters' original, I'm In The Mood For Dancing, although as yet there's no clue about exactly what it means to schmaow.

Jennie out in the wilds of the Yorkshire Dales, where she lives      

With all this musicality going on, it's fortunate that I'm able to hold a tune, but I do still get rather embarrassed by my sudden outbursts as I've always been quite shy about singing. It would seem, however, that Tourette syndrome has other ideas.

Most recently my talent for spontaneous rhyming couplets has reached new heights. They were always tuneful and perfectly scanning, but when this particular tic brought about the answer to a question on University Challenge my family were really impressed. Quizmaster Jeremy Paxman had asked the teams to complete the final line of a John Betjeman poem:

"Red hair she had and golden skin,
Her sulky lips were shaped for sin,
Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd,
The strongest legs in …"

"Pontefract!" I ticked.

And much to my amazement, I was right. Now I was never into poetry - Betjeman's charitable request for friendly bombs to fall on Slough passed me by – so you can imagine how astounding this was, especially as I've not been to Pontefract and didn't even know where the town was before it was spontaneously ticked out.

So you see, I like to think that my form of Tourette syndrome is unique; if not unique then certainly quite different to what the media portrays as being the norm.

When TS allows me to tic the answers to questions on popular television quiz shows, then it's not something bad or a flaw with my brain. I have in fact been gifted.