My colleague Sally Grace, who has died aged 78, was a leading voice and speech specialist whose most recent role was with the boys and girls appearing in the West End stage show of Billy Elliot, teaching them the Geordie dialect. She introduced them to pit-yack, based on miners’ slang, and used it as a secret shared language.
Her career began at the Central School of Speech and Drama, London, in 1955 where, as 17-year-old Sally Dutton, fresh from Birkenhead high school for girls, she was among the youngest of the student intake. In 1968, she joined the staff of the Rose Bruford Training College of Speech and Drama as a voice and speech tutor. She continued her work there for 20 years, later becoming head of department (and eventually a visiting professor). Her youthful energy proved to be a truly inspirational asset, encouraging and developing great confidence in her students.
Like many good voice and speech specialists, she was peripatetic, travelling to Europe, the US and Australia. She also joined the British Council in Syria and worked at Damascus University and the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts. This was a particularly happy time for Sally.
Her work in TV and film included vocal coaching for the BBC series Eldorado in 1992 in Spain, where she met her partner, the actor Keith Bookman. She worked wonderfully with actors of all ages, no matter what their status or celebrity, and returned to Rose Bruford in the late 90s where, until the last year of illness, she prepared students for the Carleton Hobbs BBC Radio Competition.
As a result of a stroke in 2012, she lost her speech, so cruel a blow to someone who built her world around words, language and the ability of the voice to convey meaning and emotion.
Those who knew Sally will remember her intelligence, honesty, stubbornness and integrity, and her wicked sense of humour, as well as her ability to trigger creative confidence and vocal bravery in those with whom she worked.
She is survived by Keith, and by her daughter, Sarah, from a previous relationship.
