BLOG 30: British Summer Time

BRITISH SUMMER TIME

"Terror alert, it is July and the weather is hot! I am sick of hearing on the news about the dangers and about level three warnings etc… if you don’t want to die, put a hat on, drink water and put on suntan lotion, like they do in hot countries!!!!! ” James Tyler, Bass Guitarist, Nine Days Down

I am very wary of thinking that things were better in the past. Nostalgia is a lovely past-time – but it is not accurate. Things of course were different in the past, but not always better. Nostalgia is dangerous because it fabricates a time when people were respectful, there was no crime to speak of, it always snowed at Xmas...and the sun always shone in summer. It didn’t. The past was as imperfect as our present current is and our futures no doubt will be.

However there is a lot be learnt from the past. A lack of technology meant that you really did have to use common sense.

Like in the 1950’s, Britain (having just sent all its allies from Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Caribbean, Africa and Asia home to the colonies after WW2) had to invite them all back again due to massive labour shortages. They called participants in the programme ‘Workers on Government Service’ (yes that spelt W.O.G.S…REALLY!). The colonial authorities thought it best to inform colonials exactly what to expect from your time in the mother country. The W.O.G.S. division of the Commonwealth Office provided literature with helpful advice about the differences colonials may find on arrival in Britain.

A lot of the information is now so dated (and so imperialist) it makes for nothing more than amusing reading however there is one section which remains timeless. This is the climate section, which advises that Britain is located in northern Europe, that it has four seasons a year, namely Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. The pamphlet lets the potential W.O.G.S know that the seasons are not evenly spaced and even gives a temperature range. It says September to October is autumn and to expect cool temperatures and falling leaves. It talks of November to March being winter and to expect to be cold… snow and rain and high winds of a non tropical nature are mentioned. It talks of spring being from April into May and to expect leaves and flowers to return as the temperatures climb steadily in preparation for summer.

Which leads me to the most quoted sentence in the WHOLE DOCUMENT:

“Summer

The British Summer is precisely three weeks long, it starts in late may and finishes in September”.

Yup… read it again … THREE WEEKS. Now I’m no mathematical genius but Three weeks is TWENTY ONE DAYS. Late May to September would be easily over 100 days.

Was it a misprint? No… not really. The British Summer is an ethereal thing… you catch it when you can. A hot day comes… you down tools and make the most of it… you have no idea when the next hot day is coming! Over the 100 days between late May and September you probably would have enjoyed 21 individual - largely unconnected- days of temperatures in excess of 23 degrees centigrade. If during those 21 days of blue skies and yellow sun more that 3days run consecutively the turn heat wave would be banded about liberally.

This state of affairs continued quite happily even into the 1970’s. The truly remarkable heat wave was in late June and early July of 1976. For 15 consecutive days from 23 June to 7 July inclusive, temperatures reached 90°F (32.2°C) somewhere in England on each of those 15 days. Furthermore, five days saw temperatures exceed 95°F (35°C). On 28 June, temperatures reached 35.6°C (96.1°F) in Southampton, the highest June temperature recorded in the UK. The hottest day of all was 3 July, with temperatures reaching 35.9°C (96.6°F) in Cheltenham, one of the hottest July days on record in the UK. No one questioned it, it was hot within the 100 days of the British Summer period… and guess what… by the end of September 1976 it rained… and continued to rain until winter turned the rain into snow. People put the hot weather down to one word SUMMER. People popped on a hat or sought shade, drank lots of water… and carried on. Like they do in hot countries.

In the cold season people would bandy about the term – cold snap. They had a truly remarkable cold snap in 1962. The first four inches of snow arrived on Boxing Day as Brenda Lee was "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" on the wireless. Then on the night of December 29 bitter Siberian easterly winds delivered another 10 inches of drifting powdery snow. Staff at the London Weather Centre measured the snow as they struggled into work. In Chelsea the level snow was seven inches deep with drifts of two feet. Out at Gravesend 14 inches of snow lay on the ground with the drifts reaching six feet. In January it all turned to slush and melted away. People put the snow that fell down to another word WINTER. People popped on a woolly hat, wrapped up warm, stuck on big boots… and carried on. Like they do in cold countries.

These days of course we are so much more sophisticated. We know about Climate Change… we know that the crap we have done to the planet has messed up the weather fronts. We have much more sophisticated machinery that previous generations had. Only a generation back, the British met office told the weather hanging out a piece of seaweed and monitoring how it changed. Now we have computers, and satellites that can provide information on any molecular motion that can impact on climatic or other environmental conditions.

We take our weather seriously here in Northern Europe, so much so that we set up the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites in 1977. We all chipped in millions of euros so we could each have a share in a huge satellite called Meteosat. This series of meteorological satellites have been Europe's watchful eyes on the weather. Meteosat even gave us the months we could expect the seasons to change. Winter is November, December, January, February and March. Spring is April and May .Summer is June, July and August and Autumn is September, and October. Meteosat worked out what temperature ranges and climatic issues we can expect to face during those months…All across the north of this continent.

This information has been useful to countries so they can prepare for the climatic challenges ahead. Countries most affected prepare for the weather by installing air-conditioning and buying snow-plows. The information is there now, no need to be surprised by a heat wave or cold snap… and it is good to know what is coming and it’s good to help out the populace in their efforts to carry on. (Even if all the satellite did was give the same information that the British Commonwealth office put in a leaflet to the Colonies 1951-1955).

As Brit yes… we do sniff at this information. We join in with Europe on these quangos but we really don’t care to be dictated to by a load of foreign johnnies who wish to blow their budgets on new fangled stuff like air-conditioning in metro stations and snow-plows for motorways and train lines! So we have a different method with all this information. We file it. Then we do what we Britons do best…. Put the kettle on. Okay we kind of know it will be cold in winter and hot in summer – but we tell ourselves that it would be tempting fate to take preventative measures. After all we are the only country in Europe with the prefix GREAT before it’s name, we do know best.

So…if it snows in February as it did this year… we panic… we close the country down for a day! And as demonstrated at the point of writing…The sun comes out in July …GUESS WHAT…we panic…we put the country on level three alert. (Level two being the second coming and Level one being nuclear attack).

HAVE WE GONE INSANE???? We invest in the best quality computers and satellites to help us and we are worse off than the days of a piece of mankey seaweed??? Come on guys…. In December 1962 the snow in London was 30 centimetres deep and we carried on… but in February 2009 we could not deal with 19 centimetres?! In July 1976 we had heat of 36C and we carried on… but in July of 2009 we can’t deal with temperatures 31C?! Aren’t we are supposed to use technology to help us be better than we used to be? Is it just me or are things going back ways?

As I said at the start of this blog… I am aware of the dangers of nostalgia. Things in the past were not all good…as Owens Lee Pomeroy once said “Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect!” But come on…. On the weather thing we WERE so much better at handling climate change in Britain in the past. And yet, we have more ways of accurate weather predictions than EVER before! Can we PLEASE just use the information, prepare and stop running around panicking and giving terror alerts every time it warms up or cools down and just do what we used to do… DON’T PANIC AND CARRY ON? Please?