I did this partly for ideological reasons, because of my shame at what the British government has done and is doing in Iraq; but I also did it for more prosaic reasons of self-preservation when travelling abroad. For UK passport holders, the world is becoming less friendly

For UK passport holders, the world is becoming less friendly
Sir: It’s natural to think of one’s citizenship as an asset, but the plight of Ken Bigley highlights how that asset can easily turn into a liability. Sometimes she struggled to fit all the words into the cadence (“Passengers at Platform Three/ who are waiting for this service/ please stand clear of the platform ed-ges”) but she managed it. The most banal pronouncement was transformed by her liquid singsong (“Will customers ensure their belongings/ Are with them at all times/ Unattended bags maybetakenawayby sec-uri-tee”).Prosaic, flat-capped names like Doncaster and Stevenage took on a romantic colouring when intoned in her thrilling bel canto. I believe that in the coming years, British and American citizenship will increasingly come to be seen as a liability, whereas citizenship of countries such as Ireland with peaceful foreign policies will increasingly come to be seen as an asset.Although I was born in Britain, I am lucky enough to have a valid claim to Irish citizenship by descent, which enabled me to get an Irish passport earlier this year. But when did I start humming station announcements?I was standing at York station on Monday, waiting for a train, when it dawned on me that the lady announcer’s voice always ended on the same note No wait, the same two notes, a third apart. No, hang on – it was the same up-and-down cadence each time, whether she was regretting the late departure of the 11.32, or telling people not to get caught in the slipstream of the non-stop, nuclear-waste “service”.

I think the unseen lady has hit on a mystical communication sequence, like the musical code in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Why, she may have been trying to contact alien life forms, on their evil way to Scarborough
More from John Walsh. Phrases like “the trans-Pennine service to Newcastle” could have come from La traviata. “Platform nine, for the eleven-fifty-two/ GNER service to Edinburgh” was typical. Every Tannoy-bonged announcement was – I now saw – an unchanging sequence of notes.The lyrics were sadly prosaic.

“That’s Jeremy, who’s just finished a biography of Allen Lane,” I whispered, “talking to Lucy, whose book on heroes got rave reviews, and that’s Perry Worsthorne in the yellow bow-tie…”Ruth nodded Her chin was lifted A smile tickled the edges of her mouth. She seemed to be expanding somehow, like a Japanese flower in water. I introduced her to hacks, writers and agents, laughingly explaining how she had won my wretched company in an auction, poor woman…Then a PR diva called Liz spirited her away, and I didn’t see her for an hour When I did, she was transformed. You could see by the way she worried whether her alcohol dehydrogenase was keeping up with her desire for a refill.