I sound down-to-earth, relaxed and guileless, simply by being northern

According to research, most Britons still put on a telephone voice when answering or making calls, which goes against my own observations. Whenever I dial a wrong a number the person who picks up at the other end says, "Yeah, what?" or something similarly informal. They do not seem to have any apprehension that it might be the Duke of Westminster who is calling them.

I don't think that I myself have a special telephone voice, but I certainly did in 1972 when, aged ten, I first used the phone newly installed in our York semi. It was mounted on the kitchen wall, and it seemed wrong to me that such a glamorous item as

a telephone should be placed in a context of soapsuds and potato

peel. My father had taught me to answer the phone by saying "York" and then giving the number, just as though the year had been 1902 instead of 1972. Of course, the unspoken assumption was that I would suppress my northern accent as I did so.

The most memorable call I received on that phone came ten years after it was installed, when an assistant producer on the feature film Another Country rang up to say that she was very sorry, but I had not landed the substantial part for which, as a keen undergraduate actor, I had been auditioning. That film, and the Julian Mitchell play on which it was based, were set in a public school, and to this day I blame my failure to get the part on my inability to disguise my northern accent.

Shortly afterwards, I auditioned for a drama school in London. I was offered a place for the following year, on condition that I return for one further interview. The actor who dealt with my application had two reservations about me. First, he said, he did not know how I would react to being in a changing room full of half-naked women. (He thought I was shy rather than a likely sex pest - I hope.) Second, he cautioned me that I had a very strong Yorkshire accent which sounded "weird" when I tried to disguise it.

I doubt that an ineradicable Yorkshire accent is ever considered a handicap today. In fact, my accent is now received pronunciation. I could be the very northern, tape-recorded person at National Rail Inquiries who says, "Welcome ter National Rail Inquiries. Please 'old, while I transfer yer to a customer services agent." I could be a continuity man on classless Sky TV, where provincial accents abound, Rupert Murdoch having been a real pioneer here. For years, phone calls to News International have been answered by a recording of a peevish-sounding woman, seemingly from the Midlands, who intones, slightly exasperatedly: "If you know the extension you wish to dial, please press three . . ."

Alternatively, I could be that man in the television advert who says: "Abbey National - we'll see yer right." (I may have paraphrased the slogan.) It seems to me that my voice satisfies all the requirements for peddling financial services. I sound down-to-earth, relaxed, guileless and unpretentious, all simply by virtue of being northern. A friend with a regional accent that equally implies salt-of-the-earth qualities knows a famous actor who regularly goes off to a studio in Soho where he picks up several grand for endorsing products in his gravelly tones.

My friend aspires to get into the voice-over racket himself, but the actor becomes vague when questioned about it: "I'll give you my agent's number . . . but I don't have it on me right now" and so on. If my friend ever does get the number, I'll try to prise it from him. It had better happen soon. The fact is that strong northern accents have currency in the voice-over world because they are distinct from the patronising, patrician tones that once dominated broadcasting. But it won't be long before the flat-vowel brigade becomes the new establishment, regarded with as much wariness and dislike as the old one.

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