| “ | May I have your attention please! Please do not leave cases or parcels unattended anywhere on the station! Any unattended articles are likely to be removed without warning! Thank you! | ” |
— Celia's left luggage announcement. | ||
Celia Ford Drummond (1950–11 January 2021) was an automated announcer on the British railway network, and is a voice for the KeTech CIS system. She is widely used on the Northern and Chiltern Railway network. Up until 2019, her voice was used at Southern and South Western Railway stations and several years ago at First Great Western stations but has since been fully replaced by Atos announcers in 2012. In addition to those National Rail stations such as Bristol Temple Meads, Clapham Junction and London Waterloo, she also does announcements on London Underground trains on the Jubilee and Northern lines. The English and French voices of Eurostar train station announcements at St Pancras International and formerly at Ebbsfleet International and Ashford International is also Celia's.
Celia also provided the voice of South Western Railway on-board train announcements on most of the fleet apart from Class 707. Celia's new voice was used on the now withdrawn Class 442s. From June 2023 onwards, she has been gradually replaced across most of the fleet in place of Elinor Hamilton. As of 2025, she remains in use on Class 458 and 701 units.
Celia has been on the railway network for quite a long time, announcing trains since 1996. The amount of stations she actually announces at has though decreased in recent years. London Overground, Arriva Trains Wales, National Express East Anglia and as mentioned, Southern, South Western Railway and First Great Western are all TOCs Celia formerly announced for.
In 2017, South West Trains started replacing Celia's original voice with a re-recorded slower version. This voice came to be known as 'New Celia'. Most stations retained Celia's old voice however.
The real life Celia Drummond was a professional voice actor, and had provided voice recordings in a wide variety of environments. These included television adverts, radio drama and cartoon characters. In her younger days, Celia was a singer in a folk rock band called 'Trees'. The group released two albums during their short existence. She lived in Southern France.
Celia also had a Wedding business and was a Wedding Celebrant in Provence, France, which explains why she was also able to record the French announcements for Eurostar at St Pancras International.
Celia sadly passed away on 11 January 2021 at the age of 70, and is thus no longer able to record new station names or interchanges. At KeTech-managed stations, most newer recordings are now done by Louisa Gummer. Newer announcements on the Jubilee and Northern Lines are done by Sarah Parnell and Louisa respectively.