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which saw the “worst recorded day of rain ever seen
in Britain,” and close to Cockermouth, the epicentre
of the “once-in-a-1000-years” Cumbrian floods.
Mark Weir learned about George Symons from a
BBC documentary and in particular was struck that
his grave was now effectively unmarked. Relying
on accurate weather reports as a helicopter pilot
who commuted to work at the top of a 1100ft high
mountain pass at Fleetwith Pike in Borrowdale
through the remote valleys of the Lake District
Mr Weir, in partnership with the Royal
Meteorological Society, flew, free of charge, two
pristine slabs of Lake District slate to the society’s
headquarters in Reading. The Society had the slate
engraved and in 2010, the anniversary of the British
Rainfall Society that Symons helped to found, the
grave was rededicated with Honister slate, 450
million years old, first mined by the Romans and
more recently used for the roof tiles on Buckingham
Palace and New Scotland Yard. And when did
the rededication ceremony take place at George
Symon’s grave in Kensal Green Cemetery? Why on
St Swithin’s Day of course. Tragically the popular
and flamboyant millionaire Mark Weir died in a
helicopter crash the following year, aged just 44.
And so this little study of the weather comes to an
end. No time to speak of the Great Storm of 1703,
or more of the Great Storm of 1987, nor of the white
beehive-on-stilts Stevenson Screens invented by
Robert Louis Stevenson’s dad (Treasure Island,
Kidnapped, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll
and Mr Hyde, oh and Ivanoe) for sheltering
meteorological instruments in weather stations
throughout the world And perhaps another
time I’ll
return to the long and glorious history of the
umbrella but for now I will just say look out for the
heraldic umbrella on the arms of the Holy See that
normally appears on Vatican coins and stamps
produced during the Sede vacante, the period between
the death of a pope and the election of his successor.
I expect they’ll still use it. But, as ever, I digress.
Witchcraft or Science?
I’ll leave you this month with a lovely little story from
the other side of the pond where one autumn day just a
couple of years ago the chief of a Native American
tribe was asked what the winter would be like.
He consulted his medicine man who examined the
signs in nature around the Great Lakes and told his
chief “I don’t know”. So the chief rang the National
Weather Service in Michigan where the meteorological
officer told him that it was going to be a very cold
winter. The chief told his tribe to set to work collecting
plenty of firewood and when the tribe asked their chief
if they had collected enough, he rang the weather office
again. “How sure are you it’s going to be a very cold
winter?”, he asked. “Very” said the weather man.
“Keep collecting the firewood” the chief told his tribe.
A month later it didn’t seem all that cold so the chief
called the meteorological office again. “It’s going to be
one of the coldest winters ever” said the weather man.
“How do you know?” asked the chief. And the man of
science at the Meteorological Office replied “Because
the Native Americans out at the Great Lakes are
collecting firewood like crazy.
So bye for now
.
Turned a bit rainy but the cat went out
yesterday so I know Spring is definitely on its way.