From Dr Geoff Lindsey.

My friend and teacher, living legend John Wells, talks about his life in phonetics as a researcher, lecturer, author and my predecessor as Director of the UCL Summer Course (SCEP).

SCEP 2026, online and live at UCL! Register at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/brain-sciences/pals/study/continuing-professional-development-cpd/summer-course-english-phonetics-2026

Sincere thanks to anyone who feels able to support my video-making on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/drgeofflindsey

0:00 Introduction and becoming a phonetician
2:29 A. C. Gimson
3:28 French influences
5:02 The Summer Course in English Phonetics
5:52 Meeting Daniel Jones
7:58 The Longman Pronunciation Dictionary
11:45 The Wells lexical sets
15:26 New developments: L vocalisation
17:04 New developments: chr and jr
18:58 English After RP and vowel categories
20:26 Son of RP
22:16 The 3 volume Accents of English
24:50 Esperanto
26:54 John Wells’s Phonetic Blog
27:56 Language and human contact