When 21-year-old Doris Welton first clicked on her microphone at the old Sheffield Victoria station in November, 1942, the local newspapers were there.

The Star called her "Golden Voice" when she first went on air.

The other week Doris, who later married and became Doris Atkin, died aged 86 and a little bit of railwayana passed away with her.

Back in 1942 we'd just come through the Blitz and loudspeakers had been installed on all the platforms at Victoria.

They wanted a couple of girls to read the announcements and Doris, then a ticket collector, and her colleague May Gay, were chosen. But Doris was first.

Doris, then of Petre Street, came from a Sheffield railway family. Her father and grandfather both worked on the railways and, at 16, Doris joined the London and North Eastern Railway and had a job in the signal box, not pulling the levers but noting the trains as a train register girl.

"She always had a very clear voice," says her daughter Denise Beresford, who lives in Staffordshire.

Denise still has the "scripts" her mother would read over the loudspeakers. Not just the usual ones like "The train now standing at Platform Five."

Denise says: "She would tell passengers 'Don't endanger lives by careless talk' and 'Guard your conversation.'"

There was also: "Hello passengers. An air raid alert has sounded. Passengers wishing to take cover will find shelters at the east end of platforms two, three, four and five."

The papers reported: "The voices of the girls can be heard with perfect clarity in all directions, even in the refreshment rooms."

That's not always the case today!

Doris, who lived in Woodthorpe until she moved to Staffordshire for the last 18 months of her life, never lost her love of trains.

Even in her 80s she would travel by train all over the area with her best friend Bessie Crocker of Crookes.

Both had special railway passes as Bessie was the widow of a railwayman.

Doris paid special care with the platform announcements.

"She would listen and double check if something was not clear," says her daughter.

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