WEATHER-COLLECMG

By JAN STRUTHER •

KNOW two men, brothers, who are Meteorological highbrows. Weather, to them, is not a mere stop-gap at the convergational feast : it is the guest -Of- honour, to be treated with respect, enthusiasm, the Crown Derby and the Cockburn '96. They discuss it, not, as lowbrows are content to, in loose amateurish phrases such as " Isn't it a lovely day ? ", " There's thunder in the air," or " It looks like rain ", but in clear-cut technical terms, in depressions, isobars, and anticyclones.

Let no one think from this that their conversation is dull . .

or pedantic. Far from it : their eagerness has an almost lyrical quality. One of then.' leans across the breakfast table, tapping with an excited finger the weather chart in The Times.

"Look at that ! You see how that big depression is filling up. I told you..yesterday "Yes, but don't you see — ?" says the other and draws a little anticyclone on the tablecloth with a fork.

The north wall of their house is plastered with thermo- meters; in the garden there are a rain-gauge, a sun-gauge and a wind-gauge ; and the front hall contains a wealth of instruments to poke, tap and peer at, including one of those Heath Robinson contraptions which live in a glass case and make little tremulous lines with ink. Nor is their interest in weather in any way a selfish or insular one, con- nected with their own pursuits : for they actually take in, and study with unaffected delight, a publication called The World Weather Record.

"By. the way," says one of them, "I see they had a sun temperature of 140 degrees in Sierra Leone last Tuesday."

" I know h.." replies the other, with shining eyes, `.! And look what. the humidity was at Para on Thursday week." . . .

I stayed with them once during a record heat wave. Iced drinks in deck-chairs under the cedar-tree were thoughtfully provided for, and thankfully accepted by, their guests : but they themselves took it in turns to trot backwards and forwards across the sun-baked lawn, bringing news from the north wall.

" Eighty-nine ! " one of them would mutter ecstatically, mopping his forehead and collapsing into a chair. And a little while later the other one would hoist himself to his feet, cram on a hat—for the sun was really ferocious—and set off on a similar expedition. When he reappeared we knew ,by. his triumphant walk, even before he was within shouting distance, that the mercury had touched ninety. They are fortunate, these two : they have hit upon a hobby of which nothing can ever deprive them. Failing sight may cheat the philatelist and the bird-watcher ; the amateur of snuff-boxes may find himself in his old age with no money to spare : but the man who collects weather can count upon a lifetime's amusement. Weather goes on and on. Weather happens to you, unsought : and if it isn't happening in your particular part of the world at any given moment it is happening somewhere else and you can enjoy it vicariously.

Weather—by which, of course, I mean remarkable weather —is, sociologically speaking, a good thing. It knits people together, heals petty differences, promotes co-operation. One's first impulse, when snow comes, is to find somebody to talk to about it : it does not seem real until one has shared the news. And when the pavements are caked with ice, and every- body walks precariously, curling up the toes, there is a sense of comradeship in the street which is not usually there. Slipping and staggering, people smile at one another without introduction, and sometimes even speak. They are the common butts of an enormous joke which has deprived them alike of their equilibrium and their reserve.

High winds have much the same effect. Hats bowl away, coats fly open, skirts cling, umbrellas flype themselves : and their owners, grotesquely running, grabbing, snatching, struggling, are consumed with rueful and involuntary mirth. Thrusting forward against the wind, or leaning backwards on it, they catch each other's eyes and feel as much akin as barley- stalks in a field.

Rain will do it, too. Not ordinary rain, unless it is so pro- longed as to make each new day of it a source of horrified wonder ; not a half-hearted drizzle, which is divisive in its effects, sending each one of us huddling down into a solitary, misanthropic coat-collar : but sudden, torrential rain, coming down in hammer-strokes, the drops bouncing up from the pavement like little ballet-dancers ; sluicing down the inadequate gutters, flooding across the road ; catching people unawares, driving them to take shelter in the doorways of shops, breathless, laughing, sharers of an adventure.

But fog is the best of the lot—the best common enemy. It is the grey wolf at the door, the yellow snake writhing at the window-pane. Our throats thicken and our eyes smart ; linking arms with strangers we grope our way perilously from kerb to kerb. Familiar streets are turned into caverns of unknown depths out of which monstrous shapes come loom- ing with orange eyes. Sounds are muffled and sinister. Torches flare, heraldically, at Hyde Park Corner. There is more than a chance that one may not get to one's destination ; or that, having done so, one may not get back.

That is the core of the matter. Everyday life has become too certain. We move a switch, and light blazes ; we turn a tap, and water flows ; we post a letter, and it is punctually received ; we set out for a dinner-party, and infallibly arrive there. It is all too easy, too predictable.

We cannot unwind the intricate skein of civilisation ; nor would we if we could. But when something unwinds ft for us, there is a small rebellious devil lurking in our well.. drilled souls which is always ready to leap out, rejoicing. Here, he says with a grin, is your chance ; here is adventure for the million, drama for the masses : here is the unforeseen, the incalculable, the deuce of spades wild.

And here, above all, is something to dine out on, even if one only dines with oneself. "I was in London that day it touched a hundred degrees." "1 was snowed up once in a train for forty-eight hours." Or even, as the child in High Wind in Jamaica said with simple pride, "I've got an earth- quake."

Which reminds me : the two brothers I spoke of have just come into a tidy sum of money from an uncle. Their house urgently needs re-roofing, and their car is in the last stage of senility : but they are buying a seismograph.