Why Oracy Can Win Grammys

The more I learn about oracy, the more I see its value everywhere.

Take Stephen Graham's winning speech after picking up his Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in Adolescence.

"This kind of thing doesn't happen to a kid like me. I'm just a mixed race kid from a block of flats in a place called Kirkby.

"So for me, to be here today, in front of my peers and to be acknowledged by you is the utmost humbling thing I could ever imagine in my life and it shows you that any dream is possible."

The reason I didn't go straight into radio from school is because I didn't feel confident enough to say that's what I wanted to do. It felt silly to say out loud that was an actual goal I thought I could achieve.

So I took a job as a roofing estimator in Hull. (Art and Maths were my two worst subjects at school and the only requirements for the role. I was rubbish. I am confident enough to say that these days.)

One day my line manager came into my chilly office for a tea break and to smoke a cigarette so his office didn't smell of smoke(!)

He'd been a promising footballer at youth level but it didn't work out. He was asking 19-year-old me what I wanted to be.

I told him I wanted to be a radio presenter and interview people.

He paraphrased the acceptance speech Stephen Graham would use nearly 3 decades later:

"That kind of thing doesn't happen to people like us."

In that same smokey office, in the weeks that followed, I faxed a joke to the presenter on my local radio station. He liked it. He called me (on the number on the letter head) and asked me to write gags for him daily.

That led to me becoming his producer when he got the breakfast show.

With each step, the unconfident boy-turned-young-man gradually grew the confidence to say he wanted to be the one who presents on radio.

And I did.

Which led to me being asked to host a Q&A with the cast of This Is England on a stage in-front of a live audience.

Where the future Grammy award winning Stephen Graham had a chat with me backstage and said some really lovely things about my hosting.

And that felt amazing. Because that kind of thing doesn't happen to a kid like me.

It doesn't matter if you're one of the greatest actors of your generation, a wannabe radio presenter struggling to believe in yourself as a teenager, or a child in a classroom desperate to find the confidence to share ideas.

It just goes to show Oracy really does create equity.

And with it, as Mr Graham says: any dream is possible.