Brain disease won’t stop me chatting to my grandchildren
Grandad records thousands of words before he loses his voice
MOST children love the warm, comforting tones of their grandad’s voice.
But when Tony Plant was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, he realised he would eventually lose all ability to speak to his two beloved granddaughters.
So the grandfather has digitally ‘banked’ his voice so he can still enjoy chatting with Charlotte, two, and Chloe, three, even after the disease has silenced him.
The 62-year-old has recorded 1,200 sentences to create a computer-generated accent that sounds similar to his own. It means Mr Plant will still be able to ‘talk’, using a communication device loaded with his synthetic voice. He recorded the lines – some taken from films and books, including The Wizard of Oz – and his words were then broken down to create a synthesised voice.
He had begun noticing symptoms of the muscle-wasting condition four years ago as his speech became slurred.
Mr Plant, from Bolton-byBowland, Lancashire, was diagnosed in October last year after his condition worsened and he began losing co-ordination. Commenting on the voice banking procedure, he said: ‘I will still be able to talk to my grandchildren.
‘They will be able to recognise it as grandad’s voice and not just a robotic voice or a stranger. The important thing for me is that it will make a huge difference to me in the future when my voice has gone and I can’t get it back.’
Mr Plant, who has been helped by his wife Janet, 58, said doctors told him the ‘worst case scenario’ was that ‘most people only live three to five years from diagnosis’.
He said: ‘Eventually everything shuts down apart from your brain. Motor neurone disease is different in everybody but most people eventually lose their voice.’
Speech and language therapists at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust helped Mr Plant to record his voice.
He said: ‘You have to go to a totally quiet room and record 1,200 sentences in a monotone voice. You can do about 30 to 50 sentences and then you get tired – it took me about three weeks. It is amazing and very clever how it works – it’s a computer generated voice but it is my voice.
‘The best way to describe it is if you have brothers or sisters when you speak to them on the telephone – they sound like you but not exactly like you.’
Mr Plant retired two years ago from running two fishing shops. The disease has left him in a wheelchair, but hasn’t stopped him continuing his favourite hobby.
He said: ‘I might not be able to walk into a river but I can fly fish from a boat.’