At Rushden, Northants:
1946-7 winter: At the age of just over two-and-a-half, seeing dad throw a
shoe on the fire as we were running out of coal.

1950?: Walking home from school at the age of about five or six through
fog which was so thick that not only couldn't I see across the road, when
I reached the middle I still couldn't see the kerb ahead of me and,
obviously, the one behind me had also vanished.

1955-6 winter?: From the homeward-bound school bus, saw workmen with
pickaxes breaking up the ice on the road.

1956? summer: Saw a strong-looking tornado a few miles away, just over
the border in N Bedfordshire. Nothing reported in local press.

1959 summer: Long, hot and dry. Lasting, as I recall, from May through
September. No rugger allowed after the summer holiday as the grass hadn't
grown and the pitches were rock-hard. Also saw a UFO drifting slowly
across the sky one lunchtime when we were on the school playing-field.
Turned out to be a weather balloon.

1961-2 winter: Friday 30th Dec, mod-heavy snow. Sat, all snow gone and
raining. Freezing rain about 4pm. Sun am, mod-heavy snow again. All with
a NE wind. On another occasion in that winter, fine snow found its way
through gaps in my bedroom windows and a light dusting settled on window
ledge. Was there for three days.

1962-3 winter: Just before Christmas, from a thick fog, flakes of snow
began to fall and the fog broke to reveal a clear, blue sky. The flakes
were composed of clusters of ice needles. Whilst I was at RAF Wyton
during the freeze, Dad saw my bedroom thermometer one morning registering
-10C.

1964(?) August: At RAE Thurleigh, when England was covered by the flabby
remains of a tropical storm, saw several funnel clouds - a maximum of
five in the sky at any one time.

Suffolk:
1975, 2nd June: During late morning was driving through Suffolk and
seeing snow-covered roofs and lawns still half-covered in snow. Cloud was
breaking so it had been melting for a while. Before that, radio had been
warning drivers of blizzards and to drive with headlights on.

1975-6 drought: Rest of the 1975 summer, long, dry and hot though
tempered by arrival of sea breeze in early afternoons. Dry weather
persisted through the winter and large cracks were still showing in my
lawn shortly after Christmas. 1976 summer also hot and dry but very
unpleasant much of the time as there were rarely any sea breezes.

Bracknell:
1987 Oct: One Monday evening in the pub, someone told me he was going to
watch the golf at Wentworth on the Friday. Told him it would be awful,
storm-force winds etc. Lucky for me I didn't see him again that week or
I'd have backtracked on it as the computer had been doing.

1990, Jan 25: Was in the Royal Oak at lunchtime watching a parked car
edge slowly away from the pub apparently into the wind. Told the barmaid
about it seeing as it was her car.



--
Graham Davis, Bracknell
Whilst it's true that money can't buy you happiness, at least you can
be miserable in comfort.
Newsreader for Windows, Mac, Unix family: http://pan.rebelbase.com/