Mind The Gap

London's Underground railway system, the oldest in the world, first opened in January 1863, the start of  a grand design to link the City of London with the capital's suburbs via the Metropolitan Line. There was even talk at that time that it might eventually extend to Dover and through a mooted Channel Tunnel, thereby linking Victorian London with Napoleonic Paris. What s crazy idea! 

It is not recorded if passengers were advised to  Mind The Gap   on those early subterranean journeys between Paddington and Farringdon, using gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives. It was probably all rather more sedate than it became once the network expanded under the city and was electrified in the early 1900s. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, train drivers and station attendants would make verbal announcements on underground platforms, particularly in the busier stations: "train approaching", "kindly let passengers off first", "take care when alighting and boarding", "stand clear of the closing doors". 

However, as the volume of people using the underground increased enormously in the post-war decades, the decision was made for safety reasons to automate the key message to the travelling public and in 1968 the pithy phrase "mind the gap" was chosen as the simplest and most effective way of focussing passengers' attention as they got on and off the tube trains. The same simple, short message was also painted on platform edges opposite where the train doors would open and it featured in poster campaigns promoting safety on the Underground. 

"Mind The Gap"

London Underground chose an AEG Telefunken digital system and the first '"Mind The Gap" message was recorded for use on the Central Line by a sound engineer, one Peter Lodge, owner of Redan Recorders in Bayswater, a station on the Circle Line. That recording still gets played today.

But Peter Lodge's is not the only voice that was used. Different lines, even different stations on the same line, have used other recordings down the years. Cue some fascinating name-dropping. For many years, the voice on the Piccadilly Line was that of actor Tim Bentinck, more properly called Timothy Charles Robert Noel Bentinck, 12th Earl of Portland, Count Bentinck of Waldeck Limpurg, but most well known for his role as David Archer in BBC Radio's long running 'everyday story of country folk'. He has been superseded by voice-over artist Julie Berry, who has to listen to herself almost daily as she lives near Barons Court tube station. Actress and voice-over artist Emma Clark was the voice of the Bakerloo, Central and Victoria Lines for decades until she discredited herself by making public some spoof recordings she had created. Transport For London (as it now is) terminated her contract forthwith.. And Phil Sayer, another actor and radio presenter, whose voice graced stations on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, was even accorded an obituary in the New York Times in 2016. It read: "Mr. Sayer's was not the only voice cautioning passengers to 'mind the gap', but it is arguably the most familiar one"

However, I would contend that the vote for most familiar, even most famous "Mind The Gap" voice ought to go to one Oswald Laurence. He was a RADA trained stage actor who leant his measured tones to a "Mind The Gap" announcement used by London Underground from the 1970s onwards, so although he was not a household name, his voice was heard by millions of people travelling by tube. 

Oswald met general practitioner Dr Margaret McCollum while holidaying in Morocco in 1992. They married and lived together in London until Oswald's death in 2007.By the turn of the century, as noted above, many of the early Underground public announcement recordings had been replaced by newer ones, and this had happened gradually to the Oswald Laurence  recording, although it was still in use on the Northern Line at Embankment. 

Margaret and Oswald

Bereft of the man she loved, if Margaret wanted to hear her departed husband's voice, she could still go to Embankment station and wait for a train to come in, and another. She did this for five years. "Since he died I would sit and wait for the next train until I heard his voice saying "Mind the Gap, Mind the Gap". Then on November 1st 2012 he wasn't there! I was just stunned when Oswald wasn't there anymore. I inquired and I was told there was a new digital system and they could not get his voice on it." 

Margaret was disconsolate. I know people who have hung on to dusty dictaphones and redundant answering machines because they contain the voice of a departed loved one which can be played back when the need is strong. So I can understand Margaret's reaction to her sudden loss. 

Every credit then to Transport For London for their sensitivity, for when Dr. McCollum made her predicament known to them, they retrieved the master recording that Oswald Laurence had made all those years ago and digitised it into the new system, so that his voice can still be heard to this day, but only on the northbound platform of the Northern Line at Embankment, advising passengers (including his widow when she chooses to be there) to mind how they go.

That heart-warming story was the catalyst for my latest poem:

Like Orpheus In Reverse

At certain times, not necessarily only gloomy ones

for on occasions the urge comes when she's sitting 

in Victoria Embankment Gardens enjoying the sun

on days when she has no surgery to run, she needs

to outwit his deathly silence now she can no longer

cook him breakfast, pair his socks, rest in his arms.

Like Orpheus in reverse, she plunges underground,

three hundred feet down to the labyrinth, spiralling

if needs must as when an escalator is out of bounds

for refurbishment. So she waits quietly, expectantly

upon the northbound platform of the Northern Line

anticipating that rattle within a  sooty tunnel, glints

of headlights  along humming rails,  shockwaves of

an ozone rush before his disembodied voice intones

mind the gap mind the gap. Eustachian tubes vibrate

and endorphins flood her brain. She minds of course 

this gap between having and not. But her love stays

in flower at the very edge of darkness as long as his 

voice can keep drawing her back underground to sit 

on a bench and wait for a train she won't ever board.

Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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MInd the Gap

Yesterday I had a lovely train ride along the west coast to Ravenglass which is one of those small delights hidden away in the Lake District. (Please don’t go there). ‘Mind the Gap’ was a constant refrain as we pulled in to the stations along the way. There’s a reason for mentioning that which I’ll come to later.

So, the phrase was still fresh in my mind when I came to start writing this and began to wonder how it had become so ingrained in our culture.

The phrase ‘Mind the Gap’ was coined in around 1968 for a planned automated announcement, after it had become impractical for drivers and station attendants to warn passengers on the London Underground. The phrase had to be short. A concise warning was also easier to paint onto the platform.

London Underground

The Mind the Gap announcement was first heard in 1969 and was recorded by Sound Engineer Peter Lodge. Peter originally hired an actor to voice the recording, but royalties were expected, and as the announcement would be played thousands of times a day, this simply was not financially viable. Subsequently, Peter made the recordings himself until someone more suited could be found.

Over the years, the message has been recorded by many people, but there is one heart-warming story regarding the one voiced by the actor Oswald Laurence, who made the recordings for the Northern line in the late 1960s/ early 1970s (the exact dates are unknown).

Oswald Laurence was born on 25 March 1929 in Hamburg, Germany. He was a theatre actor and lived in London with his wife, Dr Margaret McCollum, until his death in 2007 at the age of 78.

Margaret was devastated at the loss of her husband, but one place where she could relive the happy memories was on the platform at Embankment station, where she would sit and listen to Oswald’s voice. One day in November 2012, she made her regular visit to the platform only to find her husband was no longer there as the PA system had been updated. Deeply saddened by what had happened, Margaret was comforted by station staff, who were unaware of the value the previous recording held for her.

As the PA system had now been digitalized, it seemed an almost impossible ask to retrieve the tapes and reinstate the announcement with Oswald’s voice. However, Transport for London staff delved deep into the archives and found the old tapes, which were digitalized and restored and if you ever visit the Northbound platform of the Northern line at Embankment station, the voice of Oswald Laurence lives on to the present day. What to many may seem just a regular safety announcement, the Mind the Gap message brings much happiness to one special person. Isn’t that wonderful.

Margaret McCollum

Nowadays the announcements on the national railways are provided by their own staff. For instance Northern Rail had a Meet the New Voices on our Trains: Peter & Laura! ‘Peter is a conductor based in York and Laura is our cyber security & compliance manager. You'll start hearing them welcoming you on board and providing safety announcements along your journey. Laura does Mind the Gap.’

I’d just like to go back to my trip to Ravenglass. There is the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway and you just get on and off the small carriages which are at platform level. When I was getting back on the mainline train this brought to mind that for wheelchair users, and many other passengers with mobility impairments, a step of a few inches may as well be a ten-foot wall. With few exceptions, station or train staff need to deploy a manual ramp to provide level boarding. This assistance typically needs to be booked 24 hours in advance. As many wheelchair users will attest, booking this assistance is no guarantee that it will actually be provided. Sadly, mobility impaired passengers cannot simply ‘turn up and go’ on Britain’s mainline railway network.

Train operating company focus groups, even those about passenger information, regularly receive feedback on the need for step-free access. Parents with buggies, people with strollers, seniors with limited mobility, passengers with luggage, cyclists, and shoppers with large purchases all benefit from accessibility improvements. For people to become car-free, they need alternative mobility modes that are flexible and accessible. Accessibility is no longer seen as a nice-to-have, but rather the legal and ethical obligation of a public service.

Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway

The latest book, Musical Tables, from Billy Collins in 2022 is completely made up of short and very short poems. But this is mine:

Mind the Gap
I do
I do mind the gap
I mind enormously

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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