How odd is the weather, or more accurately the weather reports.
Today I woke up to a dire forecast of rain for the west, with, yes, the best and most heavy rain for us in the north.
And yet as I look out of the window this morning, the sun is bright, the streets are dry, and the sky is a mix of pale blue stabbed through with white clouds.
Added to which all week the national forecast was for cold and dry weather, which was in direct contrast to Manchester where the rain came down like stair rods.
Nor is that all, for weeks google has been directing me to the weather reports from of all newspapers the Daily Express which for months has been warning of freezing Arctic weather sweeping the country.
But then the Daily Express also led with "There will be no European war this year or next year either", which it first published on September 30th, 1938 to mark the Munich Agreement, and reprinted in various versions at regular intervals well into 1939.
All of which as well as being the “rant for today”, much favoured by those on social media, who haven’t yet got around to posting a picture of a cat or news of their forthcoming coffee break, has a serious point.
And that is the lead into an excellent book on the weather and much more from the earliest of times to 1977*
I cam across it when I was writing the book on Chorlton-cum Hardy in the first half of the 19th century when the township was still an agricultural community.
The earliest records contained in the book are sparse, but it really comes into its own from the 17th century, when it details the cost of wheat per quarter, breaks down the weather by month and reports on other crops.
The most detailed accounts are based on the records of Mr. Thomas H. Baker, who was a farmer in south west Wiltshire and published 'Records of the Season, Prices of Agricultural Produce and Phenomena Observed in the British Isles', published in 1883, and revised in 1912.
It dealt year by year with the weather, crop yields, agricultural prices and other matters or prime importance to farmers.
To these have been added the records of Mr. J. M Stratton who was also a farmer.
Together “these records are the bricks of which farming history is made – the unspectacular , prosaic, day to day facts which every farmer is familiar.”**
So when France was convulsed with revolution after bad after a series of bad harvest, in England there was a late winter, a backward spring and a serious outbreak of sheep-rot, while the year of Waterloo was a year of drought, but of abundant harvests which were a contributory cause of a rapid fall in corn prices and consequent agricultural distress.***
And that means, Agricultural Records is my first port of call, when writing period weather stories, long before I trawl the media.
So that is it, other than to say in the course of the last twenty minutes, the sun has vanished, blue has been replaced by grey, and the clouds are once more sitting on the roof tops, with yes the first of the shows.
Should I apologies to the BBC? Perhaps, but not I think to the Daily Express.
Location; a now very wet Chorlton
Pictures; of Beech Road in 2009 from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*Agricultural Records AD220-1977, J.M. Stratton and Jack Houghton Brown ed by Ralph Whitock, 1978
**ibid Agricultural Records, page 5
***1816 .... the year without a summer, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/06/1816-year-without-summer.html
 |
| Beech Road, 2009 |
And yet as I look out of the window this morning, the sun is bright, the streets are dry, and the sky is a mix of pale blue stabbed through with white clouds.
Added to which all week the national forecast was for cold and dry weather, which was in direct contrast to Manchester where the rain came down like stair rods.
Nor is that all, for weeks google has been directing me to the weather reports from of all newspapers the Daily Express which for months has been warning of freezing Arctic weather sweeping the country.
But then the Daily Express also led with "There will be no European war this year or next year either", which it first published on September 30th, 1938 to mark the Munich Agreement, and reprinted in various versions at regular intervals well into 1939.
All of which as well as being the “rant for today”, much favoured by those on social media, who haven’t yet got around to posting a picture of a cat or news of their forthcoming coffee break, has a serious point.
 |
| Hough End, 2019 |
I cam across it when I was writing the book on Chorlton-cum Hardy in the first half of the 19th century when the township was still an agricultural community.
The earliest records contained in the book are sparse, but it really comes into its own from the 17th century, when it details the cost of wheat per quarter, breaks down the weather by month and reports on other crops.
The most detailed accounts are based on the records of Mr. Thomas H. Baker, who was a farmer in south west Wiltshire and published 'Records of the Season, Prices of Agricultural Produce and Phenomena Observed in the British Isles', published in 1883, and revised in 1912.
It dealt year by year with the weather, crop yields, agricultural prices and other matters or prime importance to farmers.
To these have been added the records of Mr. J. M Stratton who was also a farmer.
Together “these records are the bricks of which farming history is made – the unspectacular , prosaic, day to day facts which every farmer is familiar.”**
 |
| Beech Road, 2009 |
And that means, Agricultural Records is my first port of call, when writing period weather stories, long before I trawl the media.
 |
| Beech Road, 2010 |
Should I apologies to the BBC? Perhaps, but not I think to the Daily Express.
Location; a now very wet Chorlton
Pictures; of Beech Road in 2009 from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*Agricultural Records AD220-1977, J.M. Stratton and Jack Houghton Brown ed by Ralph Whitock, 1978
**ibid Agricultural Records, page 5
***1816 .... the year without a summer, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2018/06/1816-year-without-summer.html
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