One of the King's most well-known characteristics was his stammer: he was a shy man who was reluctant to become king (although he was also a conscientious and dedicated man who worked hard at the role once he assumed it) and dreaded public speaking, so he had speech therapy for many years with an Australian-born speech therapist, Lionel Logue (a period dramatised in the film The King's Speech). The success of this treatment allowed the King to make a historic speech on Christmas Day 1939, a few months after the outbreak of war, continuing a tradition of the reigning monarch making a Christmas address that survives to this day. (The 1908 poem the King quotes at the end is God Knows by Minnie Louise Haskins, popularly known as The Gate Of The Year from its first line.)