The announcer of the Tube, Eleanor Hamilton, spoke to City News about what it's like to be one of the capital's most iconic voices.
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Please mind the gap. All change here. Customers are advised to…
You hear these phrases every day on the underground, but have you ever considered whose voice you’re listening to?
City News spoke to Eleanor Hamilton, a Tube announcer to discover what it’s like to be part of one of the capital’s most iconic sounds.
Dominant Male voices
Ms Hamilton was originally booked to record the Northern, Picadilly and Jubilee lines – which she refers to as “the fluffy ones”. She told City News, that as a female voice actor, passengers tend to “take less notice of the announcements”.
“The male voices tell you to mind the gap, to get out the way or there’s a bomb threat, because people actually listen to [their] voices in the way they don’t [with women].”
Changing times
Being part of the tube network in one way or another is iconic, but like the rest of London, the times are changing. Ms Hamilton was booked to re-record parts of her announcements.
“It was [like that] nearly twenty years ago…I think quite a lot has changed since then. When we started every announcement began ‘ladies and gentlemen’ but now.. we’re not ladies and gentlemen anymore, we’re customers.”
An anonymous icon?
As many of us wonder, ‘who’s the voice of the Tube?’, have you ever considered, you could be travelling beside one of them?
Ms Hamilton says she enjoys the curious anonymity her role offers, “it’s weird…I do love it, I wish I didn’t sound so young and so tired… but I think now, I listen to the stuff I recorded seventeen years ago and I’d be so much better now, but I love the anonymity of it …I quite like the fact that it’s there, and it is an iconic sound.”
“Nobody would recognise my voice, because I’m naturally a little bit northern and they wanted me to take that out straight away because we’re in London…a lot of us work in a different voice, it’s only recently – within the last five years – that I’ve started to work in a northern accent.”
You can here the full interview on City Radio.
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HeadlineAll change: City News speaks to a tube announcer
Short HeadlineAn interview with a Tube announcer Eleanor Hamilton
StandfirstEleanor Hamilton, told us what it's like to be part of one of the capital's most iconic sounds.
Please mind the gap. All change here. Customers are advised to…
You hear these phrases every day on the underground, but have you ever considered whose voice you’re listening to?
City News spoke to Eleanor Hamilton, a Tube announcer to discover what it’s like to be part of one of the capital’s most iconic sounds.
Dominant Male voices
Ms Hamilton was originally booked to record the Northern, Picadilly and Jubilee lines – which she refers to as “the fluffy ones”. She told City News, that as a female voice actor, passengers tend to “take less notice of the announcements”.
“The male voices tell you to mind the gap, to get out the way or there’s a bomb threat, because people actually listen to [their] voices in the way they don’t [with women].”
Changing times
Being part of the tube network in one way or another is iconic, but like the rest of London, the times are changing. Ms Hamilton was booked to re-record parts of her announcements.
“It was [like that] nearly twenty years ago…I think quite a lot has changed since then. When we started every announcement began ‘ladies and gentlemen’ but now.. we’re not ladies and gentlemen anymore, we’re customers.”
An anonymous icon?
As many of us wonder, ‘who’s the voice of the Tube?’, have you ever considered, you could be travelling beside one of them?
Ms Hamilton says she enjoys the curious anonymity her role offers, “it’s weird…I do love it, I wish I didn’t sound so young and so tired… but I think now, I listen to the stuff I recorded seventeen years ago and I’d be so much better now, but I love the anonymity of it …I quite like the fact that it’s there, and it is an iconic sound.”
“Nobody would recognise my voice, because I’m naturally a little bit northern and they wanted me to take that out straight away because we’re in London…a lot of us work in a different voice, it’s only recently – within the last five years – that I’ve started to work in a northern accent.”
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