164. When average weather becomes extreme
BREAKING NEWS: A British person talks about the weather.
In which Rebecca invites you to summer camp and reports on the latest forecast, inaccuracies in meteorological interpretation and the great storm of 1987.
Dear Reader,
It’s been very hot in our little corner of the world over the last few days, and with a swelteringly humid day yesterday culminating in a spectacular thunderstorm which overwhelmed the gutters what better topic to revisit in an ‘Old gold’ post than the good ol’ British weather?
STOP PRESS
Before that, though, let me just tell you about something really exciting!
Did you grow up with the experience of summer camp? The joyous, playful, free, self-led Camp AweGust designed by
of right here on Substack is a breath of fresh air, jam-packed with fun ideas to read about and explore. Camp AweGust posts appear every Thursday.Camp AweGust is a 4 week, choose-your-own-adventure, virtual summer camp.
We tackle the seasonal burnout and anxious boredom of these dog days with imagination, creativity, and the kind of simple joys that make us feel like a kid again. The best part is – you don’t have to go anywhere. We’ll find magic and delight and freedom exactly where we are.
It’s completely free. All are welcome. And you can invite anyone you want. In fact, it’s highly encouraged.
Reader, I’ll see you at camp! 🏕️
☀️ 🌦️ ☀️ 🌦️ ☀️
Dear Reader,
Even if you don’t know a great deal about Great Britain, you will have heard about its weather. Our rain is legendary in its ability to invite itself along to any summer picnic, the appearance of more than four flakes of snow in one eyeful between October and April makes transport nationwide grind to an immediate halt, and we are becoming accustomed to previously unprecedented heatwaves sneaking into the timetable of seasonal deluges to catch us risking a sun tan on top of the more typical rain-induced rust.
The most surprising British weather in my life so far came in 1987, when the ‘Great Storm’ hit the southern part of England and northern France of the night of October 15th-16th. Again, unprecedented. After a disturbed night, at first light we all watched from my bedroom window as tree after tree fell like ninepins in the wood at the bottom of our wind-savaged garden.
There had been no warning. Or had there? Well, it was complicated. Met Office and BBC weatherman Michael Fish had uttered these words in his weather report just hours before the storm:
‘Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way; well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't.’
Despite Fish’s later attempts to clarify what he’d said2, a clip of the 'gaffe’ has been doing the rounds ever since.
As a result of the Great Storm over twenty people lost their lives, and services and infrastructure were a mess. And the landscape had changed overnight: the local National Trust garden where my brother would later be apprenticed to the head gardener suffered the loss of specimen trees of national significance. Sevenoaks in Kent, the next-door county to ours in East Sussex, lost six of its seven eponymous oaks. The name remained, but its residents mourned the loss of part of their identity.
We couldn’t get to school. Dad and many of our rural village neighbours spent days working on fallen trees with their chainsaws to clear the roads. We had no power, and this would remain the case for over a week.
The first afternoon we dug our emergency stash of candles out of the cupboard under the stairs and set about placing them in convenient spots around the house. A few minutes after lighting them we heard the piercing siren of the battery-operated smoke alarm in the hall: the beautiful handmade paper and pressed flower lampshade that had been our mother’s birthday present had gone up in flames. Naïvely I had put a candle just beside the lamp, and lit it. I was devastated to see the results of my carelessness.
‘It was common sense for me to put the candle where we normally have a light on!’
I was crying.
‘It would have been better sense not to’, said Dad, putting the fire extinguisher down and giving me a hug. ‘It’s fine. We’re fine.’
Power had been restored to the British Telecom network fairly quickly after the storm, and Mum rang Grandma, in another part of the country, to report that we were alive and well. ‘We haven’t got any electricity or hot water, though.’
Grandma was relieved. ‘There are such awful, awful pictures on the news! I’m so glad you can’t watch television – you’d be absolutely horrified!’
Mum grinned. ‘We’re in it, Mum. We don’t need the telly.’
With our oil-fired range providing us with an opportunity to cook that our neighbours with only electric stoves didn’t have, our kitchen had quickly become the village cookhouse. Local people would arrive clutching dripping containers of half-thawed food from their dead freezers, and diverse ingredients would be pooled to create unrepeatable plats du jour to be shared by candlelight in the dim dining room.
This was fun: we ate like kings, and got to know so many people. In normal circumstances we lived a fairly isolated existence: with no pavements at all along a very busy main road to link our spread-out houses we’d always found it difficult to socialise locally. Yes, we had neighbouring houses within eyeshot, but we’d never made a habit of just popping down the road to another house.
With the road still blocked we certainly didn’t need to worry about traffic at the moment.
A kind neighbour offered hot baths. She had a generator, and was using this to power her electric immersion heater. This was a wonderful offer. The four of us set off en masse, and later, arriving home with big smiles and damp hair, we found a note that had been pushed through our letterbox.
‘You’ve got ELECTRICITY, you lucky things!’
What? No we hadn’t. The note was from J, a family friend. The note was odd, and my mother seemed worried.
‘We’re going to see J, and I’m taking wine.’
All the way to J’s house the landscape felt eerily empty, apart from scattered leaves, jumbled-up branches and piles of damp sawdust.
J looked upset. ‘You didn’t tell me that your power’s back on!’
‘It isn’t! We’re still off, like everybody else.’
‘I RANG YOUR DOORBELL!’
Mum laughed. ‘It’s a battery one!’ She opened the wine. ‘Not chilled, I’m afraid. But you know that already.’
The next week was our school’s half-term break, and we were due to head to the north of England on holiday. Even once we’d finished packing the car my brother and I were still running in and out of the house fretting about the sort of random stuff we would always leave to the last minute.
‘I can’t wait for this, can you? Even if it rains all week at least we’ll have electricity up there!’
With that, the hall lights flickered on, and a tinny cacophony of electronic beeps could be heard from an assortment of gadgets that were plugged in around the house.
‘IT’S BACK ON!’
Amazed at the lucky timing, we rushed around turning off lights. The fridge and freezer had kicked into life: these were empty and clean, all the food having either been swiftly used or regretfully ditched as soon as the prolonged lack of cooling had rendered it inedible. We couldn’t stick around to revel in the charged-up glow of newly-restored power, though: we were off on holiday!
That evening, after the long drive north, we had dinner in a posh-for-us restaurant my father had booked. It was full, and other diners chatted and murmured to each other as they enjoyed their food in handsome surroundings.
I should have been enjoying this rare treat. Instead, I looked down at my plate, feeling sad.
Mum was concerned. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’
‘I HATE CANDLES! It’s so dark! Can’t you get them to turn the lights on?’
Love,
Rebecca
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please let me know by clicking the heart. Thank you!
Thank you for reading! If you enjoy ‘Dear Reader, I’m lost’, please share and subscribe for free.
Hahaha! What a wonderful read! As a child things are always this strange mix of excitement and trepidation. I love that you’ve looked back at that time and shared it with us. So many feelings. How cool having this as record of that unforgettable few weeks. Thanks. Sending cooling hugs from frosty Australia. 🤗🤗🥶
I slept through the whole thing 😂