TRAVELLERS are creatures caught between two worlds. They are neither where they anticipate, nor where they were, but on a featureless white concourse or grey station platform, considering the void. A smartphone will fill that, to a point; but it does not quite smooth the edge of their anxiety and displacement. What they need is existential reassurance that they can, for certain, move towards where they want to go.

Such blessed assurance, at least for passengers on the busiest southern, south-western and central parts of England’s railways, was what Phil Sayer gave in spades. When he announced that the 17.36 for Hampton Court, calling at Vauxhall, Clapham Junction, Earlsfield, Wimbledon, Raynes Park, New Malden, Berrylands, Surbiton, Thames Ditton and Hampton Court, was standing at Platform 6, you knew it could not possibly be anywhere else, or bound for any other place. When he added that this train was formed of four coaches, you knew it would not be five, or three. Such warm, confident tones could not be wrong.

Accordingly, travellers entrusted their lives to him. All across the London Underground, at his behest, they took care to Mind the Gap between the train and the platform—or sometimes, more subtly, between the platform and the train. Thanks to him, they stood clear of the closing doors and did not leave cases or parcels unattended anywhere on the station; for any unattended articles, he had told them, were likely to be removed without warning. The gentle but firm authority in his voice obviated the need to say “Please”.

Few gave a thought to who he was, or where. If not in the clouds, then he was in the cavernous cast-iron murk of the station roof, where pigeons brooded. Those who listened to him daily detected human touches: his succulent enthusiasm for the trolley service of drinks and light refreshments that would be available on this train, as if he was already unwrapping a tuna sandwich; his palpable excitement at the words “London Midland” or “Cross Country”; his interesting hesitation, when announcing the Bournemouth service, between “Brockenhurst” and “Sway”, as though he doubted for a moment whether tiny Sway existed.

The words “We are sorry”, which he said a good deal, prefatory to adverse weather conditions, leaves on the line, staff absences and signal failures, were controversial. Their firmness had a touch of melancholy and defiance. Perhaps, saying them so often, he never meant them at all. Perhaps, sitting snug and smug in an office somewhere, he cared nothing for the ant-like confusion of the crowd below. At Birmingham New Street once a furious passenger, caught out by a late platform alteration, was seen shaking his fist at the tannoy and crying that he had lied.

In fact Mr Sayer was a nice, funny, ordinary chap, brought up in Liverpool and living in Bolton; station cognoscenti, despite his perfect, classless diction, could still detect the northerner in him. The messages of comfort or doom were recorded in a little studio across the hall from his kitchen; and as his apologies were relayed to the southern morning scrum he was generally asleep, or leisurely sipping a large cup of coffee to lubricate his voice. The only difference between his ordinary and working personae was that the working Phil straightened, focused and widened his eyes behind the specs, becoming just slightly more ridiculous, he would say, than his real self; and praying not to trip over “Micheldever”, “digital”, “shortages”, or other well-known traps of the trade.

He was not indifferent to the plight of travellers. Indeed, he was often a champion of the common man. In the 1970s he had worked for a while on a pirate-radio “peace boat” aiming pop songs at the Middle East. Much of his career was spent on local and BBC radio in Manchester, where he cut ribbons at primary schools and played darts in street-corner pubs, absorbing the life and chatter of the place. When not announcing trains, he did radio commercials for new cars, dog shows, fungal-infection creams and everything under the sun. He loved voice-over work, and claimed even to be on friendly terms with the (still secret and much-loathed) woman on the supermarket self-checkouts, with her unexpected items in the bagging area.

A broken-down grill

His railway job gave him great happiness. Down in London one day, he stood as close as he dared to perfect strangers on the Tube and parroted his own announcements, hoping they would recognise him. Disappointingly, they didn’t. For visiting reporters he and his wife Elinor, his business partner and Tube co-instructor (“Please take all your personal belongings with you”), would give a glimpse of the home life many assumed they led:

“What’s for breakfast, darling?”

“We apologise for the late running of your breakfast. This is due to the late running of the children’s breakfast earlier.”

“Oh well, I’ll just have some toast.”

“We regret to announce that the toast service has been cancelled, due to a broken-down grill.”

His death was announced by his wife with the words: “This service terminates here.” He might have added a less finite thought: “All change, please; all change.”