Celebrating UK’s diverse accent on audio track

The team of three pupils, from Cockburn John Charles Academy, joined London North Eastern Railway’s project recently, to create the audio journey, which features a variety of accents and dialects from over 20 towns, cities and communities.

The audio recording, ‘Track Record,’ and follows the east coast main line, starting in London and finishing in Aberdeen. Edith who proudly hails from Fife, Scotland,’ collaborated on the track, which features the voices of the trio of students, LNER’s staff and people from communities on the train operator’s route.

Track Record was created in response to new research from LNER, which reveals close to three in ten Yorkshire locals cannot tell where an accent comes from. Although over 73 per cent agree they would hate it if everyone sounded the same, 33 per cent of Yorkshire residents have found their own accents have become weaker or more neutral as they have gotten older. In fact, 29 per cent believe the Yorkshire accent is at most risk.

Edith Bowman said: “I am so excited to share our ‘Track Record’ with the public. I proudly hail from a small town in Scotland and am very passionate about preserving not just my own accent but all the unique accents we have in Great Britain.

“I hope with LNER that our ‘Track Record’ will inspire the nation to hear, identify and celebrate a broad range of local accents along its east coast main line.”

Jennie Pitt, of LNER, added: “Wherever you’re from, we know how important your accent and local dialect are to you. At LNER, we are proud of all the different people our route serves.’

Visit lner.co.uk/trackrecord to listen to the recording.