Time runs out for the voice of the speaking clock
FOR 21 years she was the nation’s timekeeper.
She could be relied on when the clocks went forward or back. She told us the precise moment to fall silent in tribute to our heroic war dead. She was trusted to know the exact instant we should celebrate a new year.
But this week Pat Simmons, the second person to be the voice of the speaking clock, died at the age of 85.
‘ Pat’s voice was one of the most recognisable in Britain,’ said BT chairman Sir Christopher Bland yesterday.
‘She won an army of fans and was trusted by the millions of people who regularly called the speaking clock to find out the time.’
Miss Simmons, from East Ham, East London, was an assistant supervisor at a telephone exchange when she beat 9,000 hopefuls to win the job in 1963, taking over from Jane Cain who started the service in 1936.
It won her a £100 prize and later an Imperial Service Medal.
‘I was hoping I would win because I was always top of the class in elocution at school,’ Miss Simmons said at the time.
Ironically she arrived late for the session in which she was to record the famous ‘ at the third stroke’ messages at a Post Office research station in Willesden, North-West London, because it had been snowing.
Miss Simmons, who was single, was the voice of the speaking clock until 1984. BT demanded a change to synchronise with its launch as a public limited company.
The job was then given to Brian Cobby, a telephone supervisor from Brighton.
He was already the voice behind the ‘5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 . . . Thunderbirds Are Go!’ theme to the TV puppet series created by Gerry Anderson.
Mr Cobby, whose voice is still the speaking clock, praised his predecessor yesterday.
‘ Pat was a very sweet charming woman,’ he said.
‘ She was very gracious when she handed over the mantle and and I appreciated her support. She was on the panel of judges that chose me to succeed her, along with TV presenter Frank Bough and the actor Robert Morley.’ BT said yesterday that in the past the speaking clock had received more than 200million calls a year.
It now receives about 80million. A BT spokesman said: ‘There are now umpteen ways of finding out the time.
‘It’s on your mobile phone and on your computer.
‘People tend to use it most four times a year – when the clocks change, on Armistice Day and on New Year’s Eve.’
b.mouland@dailymail.co.uk