It's probably of little interest to anyone but me but I can't let this
anniversary pass without mention.

50 years ago today I started work in the Met Office at Prestwick Airport. I've
been working full-time in meteorology ever since and I've got no thoughts of
retiring yet. For the first 35 years I was an employee:

1961-1967 Met Office
1967-1970 Australian Bureau of Meteorology
1970-1980 Imcos Marine
1980-1996 Noble Denton

Since 1996 I have been self-employed.

I consider that I have been extremely fortunate to have been able to spend a
lifetime being paid to indulge in a hobby! My wife says I've never done a real
days work in my life. My career has spanned what I think has been a most
interesting phase in the development of the science of meteorology. I have
worked in all continents other than South America. Operationally we have gone
from 5 characters per second teletype to the computerised world we are all
familiar with today. Perhaps a lot of the fun has gone out of the job in recent
years and certainly a great deal of the local knowledge and experience has
gone. And, despite all of the advances, consistent accurate forecasting of
local detail for the next 12-24 hours has not yet been achieved.

I've enjoyed all parts of my career but I have particularly fond memories of
the 3 years I spent on the Ocean Weather Ships in the mid-1960s. By chance, I
have discovered that another ex-Weather Ship metman from the mid-60s, Bill
Howard, lives only 200 yards from me. It's a small world.

Today, I have an incredible array of "tools" available to look at both the
real-time weather and the historical weather. The subject has just as much
fascination for me today as it had 50 years ago. I look forward to many more
years of work and hobby!

--
Norman Lynagh
Tideswell, Derbyshire
303m a.s.l.