MOST people in the region change their accent depending on who they are talking to, according to a survey.

The BBC poll found that four out of five people in the North-East and Cumbria vary their accent while three out of five wish they could change how they sound sometimes.

And the most prefered accent in the region is Scottish, with Sean Connery voted as having the most pleasant voice and Ulster politician Ian Paisley the least pleasant.

Despite the region's residents wanting to sound diferent, the Newcastle accent was voted the tenth most popular in the country.

And 64 per cent of people in the area said they were proud of their accent.

The results of the survey launched a project to record the way the nation sounds by recording the voices of at least 1,000 interviewees.

People are being drawn from an eclectic mix of people from across the UK.

The audio material will be made into an online interactive dialect map of the British Isles.

Audio interviews will also be deposited with the National Sound Archive at the British Library and in sound archives in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.