In a recent post, I talked about my obsession with weather when at Primary School. I want to continue that briefly. Not at school though. When I was young, my mum worked in Swanage. During the school holidays, I would go with her. She worked in a Cafe. I always had a very nice lunch, but I was always, otherwise left to my own devices. What could I do, other than explore Swanage?
I would often walk out to Swanage Lighthouse (I wonder if that’s where my obsession with Lighthouses began). I would go and visit the Great globe at Durleston Castle, and spend time on the pier and out at Peveril Point, the old WW2 bunkers there were popular especially if the weather was bad.
But, but, my most favouritist of places was on the Downs above the Beach – The Weather Station up there. I was fascinated with what was going on, what was the large white box? What was in there? What was the strange glass ball? I would spend hours there, but I never saw anyone go in to read the instruments. If I had, I would have talked to them.
Of course I found out about Stevenson Screens, graphing barometers, thermometers, rain gauges (that must have been why I wanted to measure the rain at school), The Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder. Wonderful. Now, if only I had the space, I would build my own weather station, and record the data every day. I’d even put a fence around it with a lockable gate – that would really add to the atmosphere.
Now I know what I want to write about Astronomy!
Bills Posts 