I fly the airline very frequently ( at times 10 times in a month and have done so since about 1976.)
I totally disagree that the service style or delivery post or prior to 1997 was different when attending to us Brits. To be frank l I consider the above to be absolute nonsense - it just did not happen.
Of course at the time and for many years prior all of the cc were Asian drawn from 7or 8 countries with most totally unable to tell one accent from another.

Yes the MTR voice is real - there was an article in the SCMP a few years back about the person behind the voice.