The Most Mellifluous of British Accents?

[TheGreenGoblin]

What say the house ops-normal?

What accents you do you like and which ones make you hold your ears?

[Capetonian]

Northern Ireland accents come in a multitude and can sound harsh and aggressive, the late Ian Paisley was a perfect example of that, but in general I find it delightful and the further west it goes towards Letterkenny and Donegal in the Republic the more pleasant it is. Think of Liam Neeson's normal speaking voice as an example, not when he's ranting and raving in the violent movies he normally acts in.

Second favourite is Co. Durham and up towards Tyneside, although Newcastle itself can sound very rough.

The one that makes me cringe is Black Country (don't accuse me of being racist, I'm referring to the area round Walsall/Wolverhampton) and Birmingham. I don't much like the Bristol accent either.

Then there's the vile 'Yardie' accent adopted by so many youngsters to get 'street cred' but that's not a British in a real sense.

I'm struggling to remember the name of a TV presenter from NI who has a delightful accent, which matches a pretty Irish face and eyes. I think she might be one of the 'weather girls'.

[larsssnowpharter]

I find myself broadly in agreement with Capetonian re Irish accents except for the Belfast area. Favourite would be that soft, almost lispy, English spoken in Connemara. Perhaps harkening back to the Gealic?

In Scotland, it has to be the Highlands and Islands. Inverness, famous for its clarity and good grammar but, if mellifluous sounds be the judge, possibly the Isle of Skye.

In England, I am fond of the Somerset accent. Many will recall the seductive voice of a lady advertising a chocolate bar. I remember the voice but not the product.

The most vile accent: Dundee. A girl from whence had her accent described to me, "She opened her mouth and a bale of jute fell out."

[Undried Plum]

Many will recall the seductive voice of a lady advertising a chocolate bar. I remember the voice but not the product.

Miriam Margolyes.

She's practically an aunt, non-biological, to me. I've known her since she played in the Cambridge Footlights at the Fringe in the 1960s ('66?) and stayed in our house in the New Town.

She's brilliant at picking up voices, accents and personalities and speaking them. She goes out of her way to find interesting ones. She can do at least four different Edinburgh accents and half a dozen different characters in each of those accents. She occasionally pops up on telly chat shows and you can see that the hosts are nervous that she's going to say something ****. In private, she tells belly-hurtingly funny dirty jokes and stories. On tv she does tone it down a bit, though not much.

[Magnus]

Did MM voice the Cadbury's Caramel adverts?

[Undried Plum]

Did MM voice the Cadbury's Caramel adverts?

Yes, that was her.

[ian16th]

The one that was most off putting from the lips of a good looking local female, was the 'Swedish' as spoken from Kings Lynn to Norwich.

[Pontius Navigator]

Welsh

[TheGreenGoblin]

Welsh

[ricardian]

Orkney accent
Doric!

[Woody]

Not one to lower the tone, but here’s a few examples

[Hydromet]

Way back when, I used to speak on the phone each day to an English lady with a delightful accent, though I'm not sure where she was from. In my mind I formed a picture of her as a slim, blonde lady. Eventually, we met up for Christmas drinks, and she was entirely different to how I pictured her, though still a lovely person.

[tango15]

In the late nineties/ early noughties, I spent four years working on a project in Greece, of which I can say little. We set up an office in an anonymous building in a posh suburb of Athens and went about our business. The nature of the business required encrypted comms and the company sent out a couple of our boys to set up the necessary equipment. Both guys, totally competent, but broad Geordie, arrived to perform their duties. The secretary we had spoke perfect English and was extremely competent.
The guys would chat away to each other and the British staff in broad Geordie as they went about their tasks, and one occasion went out of the office for a smoke. The secretary came over to me and said, "I know these guys are English, but what language are they speaking?"

[ExSp33db1rd]

I don't have an accent, everyone else does.

[Hydromet]

In PNG, our neighbour spoke Pidgin, Motu, his place talk and English. His wife spoke Motu and her different place talk. Their oldest son, about 5 or 6, spoke all 5 languages and could flick between them, but when he spoke English, it was with a very plum-in-the-mouth accent, most unlike his father's.

[Pontius Navigator]

Hydromet, ditto I can think of two.

One a little grey-haired oldlady, mid-70s, no more than 7st on a wet day. GPO invariably g or me the wrong number. All she see ever said was "Hello, this is Stranraer 2502" in a beautiful West coast lilt.

The other was entirely English. She was the voice of the CompuServe voice mail. It was the most gorgeous come to bed accent you could ever hear. Worth ringing just to hear her. Then she was gone. One day, different company, it had to be her again

One more, Pam Ayres.

[4mastacker]

.....The guys would chat away to each other and the British staff in broad Geordie as they went about their tasks, and one occasion went out of the office for a smoke. The secretary came over to me and said, "I know these guys are English, but what language are they speaking?"

A story on another forum has a similar line.

The author was recounting his time working in Newcastle. On his arrival he went to his hotel and stood behind a lady who was also booking in. The lady was having a conversation with the receptionist who was speaking what he described as "deep Geordie"- he had served with the Geordie Hussars and could follow what she was saying, but he couldn't identify the dialect of the lady booking in. Then he realised the lady booking in was speaking pure Norwegian - she and the receptionist were getting along fine.

Coming from the north bank of the river, my dialect is different from someone from the south side - I can identify a Mackem from the way they talk. Pitmatic is a language on its own.

As for "foreign" accents, I knew a WRAF who hailed from the Western Isles and she had the most delightful, softly spoken accent you could imagine...she a was a bit of a stunner as well... ahhh! the beautiful Morag.

[Pontius Navigator]

4ma, ditto Birkenhead and Liverpool.

One day, just north of the Tyne I pulled into a filling station to check directions. Three 'women' were chattering away in fine pitch. I asked my question and one, a man, replied in a deep English accent. Definitely bilingual.

[Capetonian]

From my maybe to be published one day 'memoir'. My first job was in a travel company where one of my colleagues and I .......

...... both fell in lust with the voice of the secretary of a corporate customer, or more accurately, we fantasised over the images her voice invoked, and fought over opportunities to call her even when not strictly necessary. We spent hours trying to summon up courage to invite her for a coffee, or looking for feeble excuses to meet her in person. One day an opportunity arose for a document to be delivered, we span a coin, I won, and was burning tyre rubber on my way before the coin had been pocketed, as we'd struck an agreement that whichever of us met her first had the first chance of mounting a seduction campaign.

Previous clandestine reconnaissance paid off and I found her office building without difficulty. Standing in front of the object of our fantasies I lost my tongue and my nerve, barely gave the woman a glance, forgot the carefully planned pick-up lines, dropped the ticket wallet, and ran. Only in the lift on the way out did it dawn on me that the fat dowdy middle aged woman whose office door bore the name of the person over whom we'd been drooling for weeks, and the sexy sounding secretary, were the same person.

Martin was older and more streetwise than I, and I was determined to turn this into an opportunity to be one up on him. Just how I would achieve this was as yet undefined. I had visions of telling him that she had accepted my invitation to a romantic evening out. As erotic images of what might have been raced through my mind, I raced through a 'stop' sign and my 75cc. moped collided with a Sunbeam Rapier. Nothing was injured except my pride and left kneecap, both of which still trouble me to this day from time to time.

Much later, back at the office, Martin asked what she was like. Having described her sensuous beauty in glowing and totally unrealistic terms until Martin was drooling at the mouth, I refused to answer his questions as to future assignations to meet. I implied that I needed time to gather up the courage to ask her out. A few mornings later, Martin walked in and gave me a look that should have ensured I never wrote this. I merely told him he should have kept his word. After that, we had a better understanding.

[Pontius Navigator]

Cape, reminds me of a tale from my father in law. After being sunk twice, he and his Oppo were drafted to Hell Fire Corner. As in your story the telephonist was called 'Angel Voice' and in similar circumstances was invited to a dance. At the appointed our this far WREN appeared. My FiL and Oppo, gentlemen they weren't, made their escape.