Another heatwave in Britain. It's gorgeous.

 Another heatwave in Britain. It's gorgeous.

It's a week before the longest day of the year and June is shaping up very nicely. Any discussion of the weather in Britain has to be a matter of opinion and completely open to debate. May, depending on your point of view, was both satisfyingly typical without bursting your thermometer. It is impossible to make any valid comparisons with previous summers in Britain because for the last three years most of us have probably been totally oblivious to the climate and far more concerned about our welfare. 

Up until this point we've had the customary menu of rain, sun, wind, hailstones, torrential rain, a tropical monsoon for an hour in Torquay and the traditional schedule of highs and lows. It's safe to assume that most of us are just conditioned to the weather since it becomes the dominant topic wherever you happen to be and regardless of where you are or what you happen to be doing. The weather has been so far both pleasant, acceptable, unpredictable and just glorious when least expected. We love the British weather.

Roughly three years ago we had what proved to bear an uncanny resemblance to Britain's famously sweltering heatwave which seemed to go on for ever. In 1976 some of us spent our entire school summer holiday basking in the blissful sunshine and for a while we thought we'd borrowed some of the Mediterranean central heating system, as temperatures soared into the dizzying heights of the 80s and 90s. Then there were the three or four continuous months starting at the end of April of that year to the August Bank Holiday when it abruptly came to an end with a dramatic thunder and lightning overture from the percussion section in the sky.

That memorable summer of 46 years ago now seems like some magical fantasy that none of us could believe and even now in retrospect, still seems like some fabulous dream that didn't really happen but did. Most of the kids of my generation descended on a open air swimming pool at Valentines Park, Ilford in Essex. At the beginning of that school summer holiday the sun had been out for quite some time and none of us really thought anything out of the ordinary would follow. 

But then by the end of July it was still uncharacteristically warm and hot and we couldn't really understand why. The previous year, although still a vague recollection, had also been sun factor 43 weather for some time if not the same length of time. Now a clear, blue sky hovered beautifully over our wonderful Essex suburb and nobody complained. We took our trunks, bikinis and towels to our respective blue and white lockers and just took the headlong plunge into a pool so cold that it was rather like jumping into a huge expanse of ice cubes from the freezer. 

Our expectations for the rest of that summer were both modest and realistic. And yet with every passing day the mercury went up almost remarkably and before long we were boasting record summer temperatures. We were now informed that a major drought had hit Britain, garden hoses were dug out of hibernating garden sheds and some parts of Britain had to queue up for their water with buckets in hand. Our family garden grass looked like a concrete bowl, parched, thirsty and desperate for just a drop of rain.

Before long we were all crying out for rain. What short memories we must have had. Sometimes there can be no pleasing any of us. So we swam all day, watched from a distance as hundreds of kids screamed, cheered, ran around the edge of the pool like Olympic sprinters, hurtled themselves into the water and then charged around in ever increasing circles. The signs around the pool expressly forbade dive bombing or just behaving irrationally and forgetting where they were. 

At the far end of the Valentines Park lido a gushing fountain sprayed water almost stylishly while around the fountain, hundreds of families laid out their towels and blankets for impromptu picnics and lunches. You can still hear and see the kids lining up to be served at the cafe and the never ending supply of 99 ice creams with a flake. Don't forget the obligatory flake. That was vitally important. 

In retrospect 1976 must have felt like a golden age for those who must have been convinced they were imagining this summer. It shouldn't have been like this. Britain normally got completely drenched in the wet stuff during previous summers, the rain pounding down on our roofs and stopping play at Wimbledon every five minutes. Then the Test cricket we used to make a habit of watching were also rained off for what seemed like ages. The image of the highly respected cricket umpire Dickie Bird getting soaked and standing defiantly in the torrential rain is one that may never be erased. 

You can still see the small lakes and puddles at Old Trafford, Headingley, Trent Bridge and the Oval. Then the covers were whipped on rapidly in the event of even heavier rain. Now they were taken off again and again and the sun came out frequently and intermittently before disappearing cheekily behind dark clouds again and yet more rain would stop play. Then the stoic commentary team of Jim Laker, Peter West and Richie Benaud would endeavour to improvise heroically knowing full well that they'd eventually run out of old cricket archive material. Cue a whole variety of umbrellas, coats and hoods.

So there you are Ladies and Gentlemen. It's June and here in Britain the short term weather forecast is more weather and more of whatever constitutes the same on these pretty isles. The isobars and squiggly lines on the BBC weather chart now look like some modern Google Earth invention. Forecasters are  are tossing coins, predicting the weather with some confidence but terrified in case they're not even remotely right. We'll wake up and smile because we're indifferent and blase about the British weather. We treasure life and don't care any more. It's good to be alive in Boris Johnson's apparently corrupt world where nothing is what it seems. You may call Johnson a compulsive liar, charlatan and lovable rogue but we couldn't possibly comment. Life is wonderfully sweet.