Groom-to-be with cerebral palsy in search for a Brummie accent for his big day

A groom-to-be with cerebral palsy wants to change his ‘Dr Who robot' voice for a Brummie accent so he can say ‘I do’ on his wedding day with his local twang.

Jack Wells, 21, relies on a computer system that he operates with his eyes in order to communicate, similar to the system used by the late Professor Stephen Hawking.

But his current voice has a North American accent and has left Jack wanting to get back to his roots and sound like his family from Erdington. He is now working with his college, National Star, in Cheltenham, to search for a suitable voice donor with his native accent in time for his big day.

Jack and his fiancé Beth Griffith, 28, first met during lockdown in a virtual wheelchair dancing class before romance blossomed. Now the couple are engaged and expected to tie the knot on July 4, 2026 where Jack hopes he can say his own vows.

Jack, who has had athetoid cerebral palsy since birth, said: “When I get married I want to say the most important words in my life, with my own voice. I want to say ‘I do’ at my wedding with a Birmingham voice because I am from Birmingham.

“My electronic voice doesn’t tell you where I am from. I sound more like a cyberman out of Dr Who. I didn’t get my first voice until I was five-years-old. My first words were ‘I love you mum and dad’. Of course, I made everyone cry.

“Since then I have owned four of these devices, each with their own robotic voice. Some make me sound like an old man and this one makes me sound like someone out of Dr Who. I feel like my current voice doesn’t even pronounce Brummie slang correctly.

“My family come from Birmingham and Wolverhampton. It is important to have my own voice because it is part of my identity. I want to feel like me when I give my wedding reception speech in 2026. Then I am going to use my new voice at an Aston Villa game so that for the first time ever I will fit in with the rest of the crowd.”

Jack will choose two local men who best fit his ideal accent and they will then record thousands of sentences for him. Experts will then digitally merge the two groups of recordings to create a unique Brummagem accent just for him.

Jack’s mum Heidi, 43, said she hopes his potential new voice will give him his own identity and make him sound less like the 'bloke on the train platform’. The mum-of-three, who works for West Midlands Ambulance Service, said: “The search is going well, there’s been loads of voices that have come through my work.

"It’s all about seeing if those voices work. He’s got to be picky as it has to be with him forever. It will be completely Jack’s choice. It must be very overwhelming, I imagine picking a voice. Most people don’t have to pick a voice, you’re just given it.

“He wanted to be unique like everyone else, it gives you individuality and uniqueness. At the minute he’s a robot, he wants to express his personality. It would be clearer.

“At the moment, there’s many times where I don't understand him at the minute, and I’m his mum. Ultimately this is where he’s from. He's not from America or London, there’s a generic London and Australian voice on his system, but he’s not from there.

"He sounds like the bloke on the train platform. You don’t want to sound like that, you want to sound like where you come from. What will happen is Jack has to listen to a sentence from a submitted voice and then decide if your voice is him, if he identifies with him.

“That person will go to a studio and speak over 1,000 sentences into a supercomputer and that voice becomes Jack. It will be really specialised. But he’s a cheeky chappy, so there’s no point in having something really serious."

Heidi added: “There is a planned date. Ironically it’s independence day and he’ll have his own voice. He’ll probably want to say something funny, obviously, or a hello or I love you. What I don’t know, but it will be something funny, a funny phrase in his communication aid.

“I imagine it will be quite raw for him, it’ll be weird. I got used to his voice, in my mind that’s Jack. It’ll be like having a different man in the house. But I imagine it won’t take me long to get used to. And he’ll get to say I do properly in his correct accent.”

National Star spokesperson Marianne Sweet said: "National Star started its voice project in 2019. It was the result of students, who use communication devices, saying they wanted age appropriate, regional appropriate accents, which are not always available.

"They said they did not sound like their families or where they came from. Often the voices made them sound much older than they really were. The Find My Voice Project enables students to have their own bespoke voice.

"National Star, which is a charity, fundraised for the project as it is not funded under health care or the social care. Jack’s voice, once a donor is found, will be funded from grants received by National Star.

"Potential donors will be asked to send a short recording of their voice so that Jack, with the support of his speech and language therapist, can evaluate each one and choose the one he thinks best suit him. Then the voice donor records up to 1600 phrases which are run through a computer programme to create the new synthesised voice."