25 years ago today a total solar eclipse could be seen from the UK. How is that ever quarter of a century ago?
It was scheduled to be the astronomical event of a lifetime. The sun's shadow would sweep across a small part of the UK mainland in south Devon and Cornwall, arriving over Land's End at 11:10am and departing near Salcombe five minutes later. All you had to do to experience it was position yourself within the path of totality, wait and look up. So I did.
I can't remember precisely when I decided I wanted to be in the shadow's path but I can remember what triggered it. I was given a children's reference book, I think The Guinness Book of Answers, and the double page spread inside the front cover displayed graphically how a total solar eclipse would be visible from southwest England on 11th August 1999. That sounds brilliant, I thought, I need to see this... although I'll be really old when it happens, like 34. A Wednesday in the middle of the school summer holidays also sounded very doable, although I was thinking like a child at the time and there was no guarantee I'd get a job that'd allow the time off. But I went back and re-read the eclipse graphic year after year: a seed had been planted.
I don't know what you did on the first day you got your own internet connection but I searched for eclipses. Obviously I searched for other things, like dodgy photos and what old schoolfriends were up to, but "total eclipse 1999" went into Alta Vista very very early. I swiftly discovered www.eclipse.org.uk (ooh) and the very detailed NASA eclipse pages (wow) because it turned out the internet was run by nerds and nerds also liked eclipses. I soon found copious maps and timings and advice, and was now even more determined to see the eclipse in Cornwall in two summers time. But how to get there, and more to the point where to stay?
I solved this problem in early 1998 when my first serious relationship turned out to be with a Cornish native. Holidays to the peninsula were commonplace, there being relatives to visit, and suddenly I became familiar with much of the land in the upcoming totality stripe. In August 1998 I was sufficiently persuasive that a hotel room was booked for the second week of August 1999, the payoff being that the following summer's holiday had to be an African safari. An enormous deposit was paid and my place was set.
My relationship somehow hadn't combusted when eclipse week came round, so we bundled into the Audi at 4.30am for the very long drive from Essex to Cornwall. We stopped at Trago Mills for our first pasty, then realised we'd arrived ridiculously early so popped down to the harbour at Polperro to pass the time. When we finally signed in we found the 'hotel' was somewhat rustic, there were no locks on the doors and meals were rather basic, so not really what we'd have wanted to pay over the odds for. But we were here now and I was determined to make the most of it, even if things weren't looking good.
Before we left home I'd printed out the latest weather forecast from the BBC website which said the chance of seeing the eclipse was only 40%. By the end of the drive that had slipped to 30% according to the radio, and by nightfall it was down to 25% according to the telly. When I woke the next day it was down to 20% and with two sleeps to go had fallen to just 10%. I was crestfallen but hopeful, as you have to be when you've made all that effort to be somewhere for an immovable but improbable event. We kept ourselves occupied by tripping to Liskeard, dining out in Looe, attempting to watch the fireworks in Plymouth and watching the brand new Star Wars film with Jar Jar Binks in it.
When 11th August dawned the sun was nowhere to be seen because a low pressure system with heavy low cloud had moved in to spoil the party. After breakfast the hotel guests gathered on the patio, but when first contact occurred at 9.59am the only place to see it was on television, and only because the BBC had had the sense to stick a camera aboard an RAF Hercules. Around 10.15 a very slight gap opened up in the grey stratus, but not clearly enough to distinguish any bitten sliver, then rolled back into place with a vengeance. As totality approached our host opened the celebratory champagne early, fooled by the overcast weather, whereas in fact it was impossible to tell anything was happening in the heavens until seconds before final contact.
At 11.11 a rush of darker grey swept in from the west, but not the black sky we'd been imagining because the cloud was still diffracting sunlight from elsewhere. It was eerie and amazing in its suddenness, like dusk had arrived with a crash, and if you looked to the horizon you could see the shadow sweeping ahead... and catching up behind. Somewhere in the distance a firework went off, and I couldn't tell if any streetlamps had been fooled by the spectacle because the nearest was miles away. 100 seconds is all it lasted, a minute and a half of being in absolutely the right place at absolutely the right time, and then normal grey light whooshed back and the dark shadow sped off into Devon.
The other guests were seemingly impressed, chatting animatedly and finishing off their champagne. But I was disconsolate because I knew what I'd just missed - a shrinking crescent of light, the diamond sparkle of Baily's Beads, a dazzling halo round the sun, proper blackness, the greatest show on planet Earth. The true spectacle had passed above the cloudtops a few hundred feet above our heads, so near and yet so far, and I was crushed. The event I'd been dreaming of for so long had proved the most enormous disappointment, and I suffered "Was that it? You brought me all the way down here for that?" for the rest of the week.
Around noon the cloud cleared briefly allowing me to pass my eclipse glasses round so people got a glimpse of what a partial eclipse looks like, but it was only 30% at that point and didn't stay visible for long. After 12.33 there was no point watching any more, the eclipse was over, so we retired inside to watch coverage on the TV and eat a somewhat lacklustre ploughmans lunch. Perhaps thankfully it stayed overcast all afternoon so there was never a feeling of "oh if only that cloud had cleared early". But I kept careful eye on what the weather was like at 11.11am every other day that week (Monday: sunny intervals. Tuesday: visible through thin cloud. Thursday: bright and sunny. Friday: sunny again), and only on Eclipse Wednesday did a doomsday cloud-out occur.
We filled the rest of the week with trips to Fowey, Newquay and 'taking Grandma to Tintagel', as well as unnecessary shopping and another trip to the cinema. I almost withered in my seat halfway through The Mummy when Imhotep conjured up a total eclipse over Egypt, perfectly displayed above a museum skylight. I also made a point of hunting down several souvenir newspapers, assuming they hadn't sold out, and wishing perhaps we'd stayed in Newquay, The Scillies or Alderney instead. The drive home was awkward and ended in a massive thunderstorm, then I got sent off to Sainsbury's to get me out of the house so illicit phone calls could be made. It was pretty much all downhill from there.
London friends crowed on our return that they'd seen everything perfectly and unobscured, except they'd only seen 97% and it was the uniqueness of totality I'd felt compelled to experience. During a total solar eclipse the difference between 99% coverage and 100% coverage is astronomical, and you've only truly experienced one if you've seen an unobscured blackout. The trouble is it really was the event of a lifetime, England's last total solar eclipse having been in 1927 and the next being in 2090. Coincidentally that'll be back in Devon and Cornwall but this time stretching further along the south coast as far as Hastings. If you're planning to be still alive on 23rd September 2090, lucky you.
For the dedicated UK eclipse chaser the only option is a trip abroad, and even then a total eclipse is a rarity. Only three are due in mainland Europe over the next fifty years, one in 2026 in northern Spain, one in 2027 in southern Spain and one in 2053 in very very southern Spain (essentially Gibraltar). I have my eye on 2026 because BestMate has pulled the same trick as me and got himself a partner from the Basque Country, but it's still a very long way to go for what's either going to be the best thing ever or another crushing disappointment. I still have faith, just as I had faith fifty years ago about twenty-five years ago, but nature is a dazzlingly cruel mistress.
25 years ago today a total solar eclipse could be seen from the UK. How is that ever quarter of a century ago?
