Ethel Cain

Ethel May Cain , also known as Jane Cain ( May 1, 1909 , † September 19, 1996 ) was a British time teller and film actress.

In 1935, at the age of 26, Ethel Cain won a competition in which telephone operators competed for the “Golden Voice” award for the UK Speaking Clock Service's time announcement. From 1936 to May 8, 1963, the recordings of her voice were used for the time announcement. Her successors in this office were Pat Simmons, Brian Cobby, Sara Medes da Costa and, at short notice, Lenny Henry and Alicia Roland.

Life

Ethel Cain lived with her parents at 108 Mitcham Road in West Croydon and worked first in a library, then at the Victoria Telephone Exchange, where all conversations were handled by hand until 1939 , before entering the competition for employment as a time teller initiated by Stephen Tallents participated. She qualified at the final on June 21, 1935 at the GPO headquarters in St Martins-le-Grand, among other things by reading the poem L'Allegro by John Milton . The judges included Stuart Hibbert of the BBC , Dame Sybil Thorndike , John Masefield , who designed the tests for the contestants, and the newspaper magnate Lord Iliffe and the "perfect telephone customer" Rita Atkinson. Of the original 15,000 candidates, nine made it to the final round, which was filmed, among others, by staff from the Pathé Gazette . The award ceremony was followed by a dinner and a performance of the winner in the Prince of Wales Theater ; on July 4, 1935, the 79 recordings of the various sentences required for the time announcement were made. Ethel Cain's voice was recorded on glass plates , as was the practice of sound recording for films at the time.

TIM, the automatic time announcement, went into service on June 24, 1936. This marked the dawn of a new era in time management: John Pond had set up the first time announcement service in Greenwich in 1833 , and from 1836 John Belville, Ruth Belville's father , took up such services on the orders of John Airy . Now 200 callers could find out the exact time at the same time, as the timely playback of the recordings was controlled by the Royal Observatory . In the first year of its existence, TIM received almost 20 million calls, although at that time it was only available in London . However, TIM was not the first telephone time announcement in England. In 1912 the Standard Time Company had already published an offer to announce the time by telephone, and Ruth Belville had also offered telephone services at times during the First World War .

Ethel Cain became known through the competition. There were cigarette collectors' pictures with her portrait and her beauty was praised in Post Office Magazine . However, she did not get rich with the title of "Golden Voice"; she received only ten guineas for her efforts. Ethel Cain, who had participated in theatrical productions since her youth, now began a career as a movie star. Under the name Jane Cain she played in the Columbia production Vanity from 1935. However, this would remain the only film in which she had a leading role. Ethel Cain later apparently returned to working as a switchboard operator and eventually married a Mr. Bailey. In a GPO commercial called At the Third Stroke , a tired telephone customer, disappointed by his wife, finds solace in Ethel Cain's voice. In fact, there appeared to be numerous callers to the Time Service who were less interested in the exact time than in Ethel Cain's voice.

Web links

• Jane Cain in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Sample announcement from Ethel Cain ( WAV ; 512 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.brainyhistory.com/events/1909/may_1_1909_72837.html
2. ↑ http://www.britishtelephones.com/clocks/spkgclock.htm
3. ↑ http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/1179594/
4. ^ David Rooney, Ruth Belville. The Greenwich Time Lady , London 2008, ISBN 978-0-948065-97-2 , pp. 148-161
5. ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1080544/At-stroke--The-woman-voice-men-adored.html