BBC’s first TV weather forecaster George Cowling, left, and Carol Kirkwood (Image: BBC)
It was the 18th century man of letters Dr Samuel Johnson who famously declared that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather. It wasn’t just a witty quip. One piece of research revealed 94 per cent of Britons admitted having talked about the weather in the past six hours – nearly 40 per cent of them in the previous hour. Not only do we find weather chat the perfect ice-breaker when waiting for a bus, or chatting with strangers, but we also love hearing about the weather and what it’s likely to do.
And it was 100 years ago that an important landmark in our obsession with anticyclones and pressure systems occurred when the embryonic BBC radio service – launched four months earlier – broadcast its first ever regular daily weather forecast.
Today we are used to state-of-the-art forecasting with 3D graphics, satellite imagery and the chances of precipitation calculated to precise percentage points.
Weather forecasting has become a big business with many of those presenting forecasts on television going on to become celebrities and household names.
A century ago, though, it was all very different. Britain of March 1923 was a country without television, let alone smartphones, computers and the internet.
Prior to the first radio forecasts broadcast from London, the only way people could find out if it was going to rain in Scotland or Manchester (a fair bet), or if a frost was likely in deepest Dorset, was by reading a newspaper.
Suddenly, as long as they owned or rented a radio, they could tune in from their own homes to receive forecasts.
The BBC’s first TV weather forecaster George Cowling (Image: BBC)
Some even had home-made crystal radio sets, known as cat’s whiskers, which were very popular in the early days. Imagine the excitement of listening to the first daily forecast on the BBC National Radio Programme on Monday March 26, 1923.
Records reveal that on the following day, a balmy 21 degrees Celsius (or 70 Fahrenheit back then) was reached in the South-east of England, no doubt resulting in a fair few listeners dusting off their deckchairs.
By September the first edition of the Radio Times appeared, listing the programme schedules, including the weather forecasts, which a year later were broadcast simultaneously to all regions.
Radio was the number one entertainment medium in the inter-war years, with a devoted audience of many millions of listeners, but television was on its way.
In November 1936 came the first national BBC television broadcasts, and the first TV weather chart. But the Second World War put the new service on hold and it wasn’t until July 29, 1949, that regular televised daily weather forecasts began, to compete with forecasts on the wireless. It was all a far cry from what we have today, though.
Barbara Edwards became the first female forecaster on television in 1970 (Image: BBC)
For a start it was all in black and white. And there wasn’t even a presenter. The forecast consisted of just a hand-drawn map of the British Isles shown on screen with various captions such as “Cooler and Showers” and “Dull, Mild and Rainy”, while an off-screen narrator warned viewers what conditions to expect the following day.
The age of the TV weather presenter was finally born in January 1954 when 32-year-old Yorkshireman George Cowling became the BBC’s first in-vision weatherman.
“Television weather forecasts are to get the human touch,” the newspapers reported.
We were told that Cowling and fellow meteorologist Tom Clifton would appear alternately every three days. It turns out that both men were keen pipe smokers, and that, “to bring an informal air”, they might be allowed to smoke on screen.
The new weather slot lasted a full five minutes, rather than just a few seconds.
In his very first broadcast, Cowling informed viewers that the forecast was “rather windy” and “a good day to hang out the washing”.
He later discovered he had fans in high places. When Princess Margaret visited the studios and met Cowling, she told him: “Oh, I always switch you off when you come on but Mother [The Queen Mother] likes you and switches back on.”
Carol Kirkwood says graphics transformed the weather (Image: BBC)
In those early days, before computer graphics, presenting forecasts was a decidedly low-tech affair. The presenter would stand by a map marked “Tomorrow’s Weather”, using charcoal sticks and rubbers to mark up the temperatures (in those days in Fahrenheit, not Celsius), wind symbols and isobars.
All the BBC forecasters were civil servants employed by the Met Office. The presenters didn’t just read out the forecasts – as trained meteorologists they actually made them too.
By the 1970s, nearly every home in the country had a television and forecasters such as Jack Scott and Bert Foord became popular national figures who carried with them an air of authority. If they told you it was going to rain tomorrow then you had better remember your umbrella.
After the long-serving Bert Foord retired, Terry Wogan launched a light-hearted campaign to bring him back on his BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show, saying he was convinced the weather had deteriorated in his absence.
The 1970s was the decade of women’s lib, and appropriately enough, it was in 1970 that Barbara Edwards became the first woman to give the weather forecast on BBC radio. Four years later she made her TV debut.
“It just seemed rather strange that people were making such a thing of it,” she later recalled.
“For me it was just another aspect of the job.”
It was also in the mid-1970s that the famous magnetic weather symbols were introduced. Stuck on the maps of the British Isles by the presenters, they occasionally amused viewers when they lost their magnetism and flopped or dropped off entirely.
The growth of commercial television and the launch of breakfast television in 1983 led to an even greater informality in weather presenting.
Leading the way in this new generation of presenters was Francis Wilson, noted for his casual attire and languid style, who became a big hit with the ladies.
In 1989, the age of the weather pin-ups arrived when Swedish beauty Ulrika Jonsson made her debut as a TV-am weather girl.
Even she was outdone in the glamour stakes by the 6ft blonde Anne-Marie Foss who presented the weather in a bikini on the LIVETV cable station. By now weather presenters, whether fully or partially clad, were enjoying star-like status.
The irrepressible Ian McCaskill, who made an anti-cyclone coming in from the west sound as if it was the most exciting thing ever, was honoured with his own Spitting Image puppet.
McCaskill, John Kettley and other weather presenters were commemorated in the pop song John Kettley (Is A Weatherman) by Sunderland band A Tribe of Toffs, which made the Top 30 in 1988.
Jokes from weather presenters, which had been strongly discouraged in the early years, were now acceptable.
“Good evening. Dull, grey, cold and miserable? And that’s just me! The weather hasn’t been great either,” was how the BBC’s John Hammond began one forecast in 2013.
John Kettley was one presenter at the forefront of this modernisation. He began his career as a TV weatherman for the BBC’s Midlands Today in 1980 before becoming a national forecaster five years later.
“When I first started we were still putting the magnetic symbols on the maps and had only two or three charts,” he tells the Daily Express.
“But then in 1985, computer graphics were introduced. Now you could have 20 or 30 charts.”
Kettley says he and his colleagues were encouraged to be seen “as personalities rather than civil servants doing their day job”.
“Bert Foord had been told not to smile, whereas we were encouraged to be ourselves,” he adds. “I suppose Ian McCaskill was the first of these personality forecasters – he was a real live-wire, which was great.
“The main thing was not to copy anyone else, otherwise we’d all be clones. So each presenter had their own style. I suppose you could say it was a golden age of TV weather presenting.”
Kettley is still involved in weather forecasting, presenting on LBC Radio News.
Carol Kirkwood is currently one of the BBC’s leading weather presenters. In the book And Now, The Weather… she explains how, in 2005, forecasting went 3D.
“We now had graphics that moved around the UK to cover all areas, a clock that showed the time advancing through the day and night, and also moving weather elements,” she said.
“This meant we could actually show what was happening where you were and what time you could expect the weather to change.”
Perhaps the biggest change of recent years is that millions of us now don’t even need the radio or television to find out if it’s going to rain tomorrow.
We have the information literally at our fingertips, on our smartphones. The weather forecast has never been so accessible.
While so much has changed since March 1923 and those first regular daily forecasts on the wireless, one thing has remained reassuringly constant: our fascination with the ever-changing British weather.
