Yesterday we heard the sad news that Phil Sayer had died of cancer, at the still-young age of 62.
He was known as one of the voices of the Underground alongside his wife, Elinor Hamilton; but he was also the voice you heard at several rail stations across the country, which is how I met him. Metro (as was) had worked with Northern Rail (as was) in 2009 to upgrade the information systems at stations in West Yorkshire, including new screens and announcements.
Phil – being Phil, and an old hand at such things by now – asked for a loudhailer, then walked up and down the platforms at Bradford Interchange doing the announcements live. The story – with photo – is still available on the Telegraph & Argus web site.
We were taking our first steps into making our own videos at Metro but I’d been doing post-match interviews with Leeds Carnegie Ladies for a while so, after everyone had left, I sat with Phil and asked him a few questions. As this was a test it never saw the light of day, it was just me holding the camera and asking the questions (and trying to ignore the train next to us as it departed). No directional microphone, no tripod, done straight to camera, done in one take. He’ll be missed.