Woman shares heartbreaking reason she has gone to the subway station each day for 20 years

On the crowded platforms of London's Embankment Underground Station chimes a voice that gives the instruction, “Mind the gap.” Not that the instruction isn't delivered at other train stations, but this particular voice is different from the rest. It is the voice that reminds a woman of the love that she lost long ago. An elderly woman, Dr. Margaret McCollum, is attracting much attention for the way she chose to cope with her grief. Every day, she travels to the train station to hear her late husband’s voice, reported BBC.

Margaret is a general practitioner. She and her late husband, Oswald Laurence, first met in 1992 in Morocco. They fell in love, got married, and lived a happy married life in north London until Oswald passed away in 2007. “It was devastating to lose him. He had a great zest for life,” Margaret said, remembering her husband.

Left on her own, Margaret discovered an unusual way to cope with grief. She took the aid of her beloved’s voice to reminisce about the moments of the past and heal. She’d travel to the train station and hear her husband’s voice. "Since he died, I would sit and wait for the next train until I heard his voice.” Oswald’s voice was used on the northbound Northern Line to communicate the instruction “mind the gap” to the passengers. Margaret found solace in this little recorded voice, which, to her, was melodious music.

However, one day, as she arrived at Embankment station, she discovered that the voice in the recorded announcement was not Oswald's. The authorities had changed the recording. Margaret was crushed. When she inquired about it, she was told that new digital systems had replaced the old recordings. Heartbroken, Margaret appealed to them to retrieve Oswald’s voice recording for her. Hearing the entire story, the authorities were moved and readily offered to help the woman. In addition to fetching the recording for her, they also confirmed that they’d changed the recording on the station back to Oswald’s.

The then-interim Managing Director for London Underground, Nigel Holness, told BBC, "Transport for London was approached by the widow of Oswald Laurence to see whether she could get a copy of the iconic 'mind the gap' announcement her husband made over 40 years ago." He added, "We were very touched by her story, so staff tracked down the recording and not only were they able to get a copy of the announcement on CD for her to keep but are also working to restore the announcement at Embankment station."

The heart-wrenching love story quickly spread on social media. In a post on X, John Bull, a historian, detailed the whole story that he had known for years. “I wrote about it now, just because I was reminded of it while passing through Embankment myself last week and hearing the announcement again,” Bull told Bored Panda.

Presently, according to the London Transport Museum, Oswald's voice lives on. The Northbound platform of the Embankment Station is the only platform along the Northern line that has a different, non-digital voice delivering the safety message. All because of Margaret and her deep love for her husband.