My friend Janet Speight, who has died aged 82, spent her career trying to improve opportunities for children and later used her experiences of aphasia to shape and improve understanding the disorder. Aphasia, which is often caused by a stroke, can affect people’s ability to make themselves understood in speech or writing, to understand others and to read. Janet showed people with aphasia how to live rich, fulfilled lives that impact positively on others.
Janet was born within the sound of the Bow Bells in London, the eldest of five children, and went to school in Manchester. Her parents, Florence (nee Traves) and George Learmonth, were both industrial chemists from Scotland, and took the young family back to Edinburgh during the blitz. Janet met Bob Speight when they worked together at at the George Angus factory in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, which made rubber industrial products, and they married in 1964. They had two children, Russell and Bridget, and lived in the north-east of England.
