A couple of times in a decade, the British summer lets go all
its inhibitions. It becomes bored with rationing out its
sunshine during the short gaps that punctuate the watery
march of the stately depressions sweeping in from the Atlantic
and decides to have itself a heatwave. They are really quite
respectable heatwaves when they come, with the thermometer
climbing to levels that would not be considered untoward in
places such as Cairo and Khartoum which sit and swelter
under a tropical sun.
The Arab inhabitants of such places mav be used to such
climatic extravagance, but we are not. The fabric of our
society starts to crumble in the face of prolonged sunshine.
watcr supplies run low. Fleet Strcet ncwspapers cannot find
tvpc large enouqh to headlinc the phenomenon. .Trains run
late as railway lines buckle whilc office workers copulate in the
London parks at lunchtime. If such a heatwave should
coincide with a Bank Holiday weekend, then there is a mighty
national roar of agony as the British subject their pallid skins
to a roasting that leaves them streaky with calamine lotion for a week.
The British landscape and those that dwell therein can
stand this climatic extremism no better than its human
inhabitants. Great heat takes the competitive edge out of the
countryside. It saps the will. Cattle and sheep lie drowsily in
the shade of hedgerow trees while farmers turn golden brown
as they struggle with sweaty bales of hay. The summer
birdsong stops as the land lies and cooks under the un-winking,
moisture-sucking gaze of the sun.
They are good times, these. The drought may threaten the
crops and the re-growth of grass but country people, like
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