| “ | This is a security announcement! For your safety and security close circuit television is in use at this station. | ” |
— Celia's CCTV security announcements. | ||
Celia Ford Drummond (born in 1950) 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 Northern and Jubilee lines. The English voice of Eurostar train announcements is also Celia's.
Celia was also the voice on South Western Railway on-board train announcements on most fleet apart from Class 707. Celia's new voice was used on Class 442s but have now been withdrawn and may soon be present on Class 701 Arterio.
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. Network Rail, London Overground and as mentioned, Southern, South Western Railway and First Great Western.
In 2017, South Western Railway 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.
Celia sadly passed away on 11 January 2021 at the age of 70, which means she is unable to record new stations names or interchanges on the Jubilee and Northern Lines such as Crossrail interchanges at Bond Street, Canary Wharf and Stratford (Jubilee Line) and Tottenham Court Road and Moorgate (Northern Line), and the new stations "Nine Elms" and "Battersea Power Station" on the Northern Line Extension.
