You already know his voice, now meet the man behind it

Ian "Lofty" Fulton has introduced viewers to MasterChef, welcomed listeners to radio and television and been the voice behind a myriad of big-name brands.

But he was also at one time the voice that told Wagga radio listeners what was happening in their region and even made his way down the Murrumbidgee River in the Gumi race.

Mr Fulton, who spent two years as a presenter at Wagga's then-2WG AM station, has just released his memoir, Lofty: My Life in Short and is brutally honest about the highs and lows of living a life during which he has always refused to be typecast.

The youngest of four children growing up in Tasmania, Mr Fulton was born with achondroplasia dwarfism.

Sadly, he learned almost from birth that there were people who would judge him by appearances.

"I was bullied from a young age. It started with my grandmother. She was advocating to my mother that I should be locked away," he said. 

"'It would be better for Ian if you kept him home, Valerie', she told my mother. What she meant is it wouldn't be better for me, it would be better for her.

"She wouldn't have to put up with a 'less than perfect' grandson and when it came time for me to go to school, she tried again with Mum and Mum said 'no, I won't be doing that, he deserves a life just like anybody else and I'm going to make sure that he gets it'."

Mr Fulton encountered childish curiosity in his early years, but in high school, cruel and constant bullying began.

"I encountered kids I hadn't met before and one kid in particular decided he was going to make my life hell - in the first week or so - and he said 'I'm going to call you Pumpkinhead' and that just went around the school like wildfire. It was a bandwagon that everyone was happy to jump on," he said.

"And that was my lot for about three-and-a-half years of just intense verbal bullying and cruel caricatures in the locker, always designed for maximum hurt. It was designed for hurt and it did hurt, and it left its scars."

When Mr Fulton was in Year 10, the bullying finally came to an abrupt end, when another student decided he's had enough and took on the bully himself.

It was around this same period of time, that Mr Fulton's remarkable voice emerged, pretty much overnight.

"I was 15. Mum was down the hallway. I could see her, she had her back to me," he said.

"It was Saturday morning, she was in her cleaning clothes. Had the waist-high apron, doing her best impression of Alice from The Brady Bunch, and when I just woke up and said 'cup of tea and toast, thanks Mum', I just remember the feather duster freezing mid-air and she stopped like a statue. Then she turned around and glared at me and said 'what did you say?"

"And I thought 'oh, God, I've forgotten my manners' because Mum was a big stickler for manners and then I thought 'I did use my manners', so I said 'cup of tea and toast thanks Mum' and she just looked at me as if to say 'who are you and what have you done with my son' because the voice you're now hearing is what came out of my mouth."

Mr Fulton is currently getting ready for the new series of MasterChef and says, as a child, he actually dreamed of a career in cooking.

"Then, of course, when I went to do work experience when I was in year 10, it soon became evident there was no way I was going to be able to work in a commercial kitchen, so as a teenager I spat the dummy and said 'well, if I can't cook, I won't cook then', so I lost the love for cooking," he said.

Instead, Mr Fulton began a career in radio, which eventually brought him to Wagga. He worked at 2WG in 1985 and 1986.

Having started out in Tasmania, Mr Fulton had been in Shepparton for only six months when he was heard by the program director from Wagga and offered a daytime gig.

"And it was like "God, I've just moved my family over from Tassie and six months into it, we are looking at moving again', so that's how I ended up in Wagga," he said.

"We went in the first-ever Gumi festival. It was just like nothing we had ever seen before.

"When I was working at 2WG, we were very active in the community. We did a lot of outside broadcasts, whether they were client-based like the opening of a new store or community based or sporting events like the Wagga Gold Cup.

"So, there was lots of opportunities to get out and about in the community, so I'm sure they learned that I looked a little different to most people. It didn't seem to bother anyone."

From Wagga, Mr Fulton headed to another job in Brisbane, but as his career progressed, he became less interested in radio roles and decided to try voice-over instead.

These days you can hear him on Sydney radio station 2GB, on Sky News, MasterChef and as the voice for countless television ads.

He lives on the NSW South Coast with his partner of 12 years, Helen Trenerry.

Along the way, there was a tough divorce and the loss of a close friend to breast cancer.

There has also been a long battle with anxiety, an issue he does not shy away from discussing.

"With the benefit of hindsight, I can realise I've always had it," he said.

"But it was in 2013, I'd signed an agreement for representation overseas and inner voices of doubt chimed in and started going absolutely nuts 'who do you think you are' 'they're going to find out you're a fraud' and they were incessant.

"Those voices just kept going and going and going and they eventually broke me. I was only sleeping about two hours a night and during the day, I just couldn't shut them up. Your mind can only take so much of that. One day I went to do a job for a client who's been a client of mine for many years.

"It was a client I had dealt with on many occasions. I had two-and-a-half or three hours of corporate to do and got about three lines into the script and started talking gibberish.

"I had my first-ever anxiety attack and I had absolutely no idea what was happening to me. I started sweating profusely and I started to panic. So I fumbled my way through the job and got out of there, thinking I would never work in the town again and that my career was over.

"I fell into a very deep, dark psychological hole, for about three months, of general anxiety disorder and clinical depression."

Mr Fulton pays tribute to Ms Trenerry, "the love of my life", for her support.

"The breakdown was 2013. Thankfully at the time I was able to get the right help. We hit on the right medication and the right therapist at the right time," he said.

"All I would say to anyone who is reading this and dealing with mental health issues is 'please let your loved ones know' and for loved ones who are caring for people with such issues, 'thank you' and also please just keep going, keep putting one foot in front of the other. There is a way out of darkness."