Peaceful outlook as the forecast returned in 1945
THIS coming Wednesday marks the 74th anniversary of VE Day, the formal acceptance of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender and the end of the war in Europe.
The sights and sounds of that day have been well documented. As the remaining conflicts ceased across the continent, ships in British harbours gave three short blasts and one long one – Morse code for V – as a celebratory clarion call. In the dark night above, searchlights flashed the same. And church bells, for so long dormant, were dusted off and readied to be rung with free abandon.
Yet there was one other sign of peace on its way. It was less showy than a peal, a lot quieter than a horn blast, but it was certainly no less British. “As a tailpiece to Victory Day news,” the BBC’S Stuart Hibberd announced on the wireless, “we give you tonight’s weather forecast, the first you’ve heard since the war began.”
Hibberd would retire with more historic announcements to his name, but in its own way reintroducing the forecast was as sure a sign of a return to routine life as there could be. For much of the war, weather reports were highly coveted intelligence – especially by the Luftwaffe. As such, newspapers didn’t publish the forecast, the BBC didn’t announce it, and the population accepted that as a glum necessity.
(It was even more extreme in America, where a Chicago football announcer went a whole match without mentioning he could barely see anything due to thick fog.)
Imagine the people’s joy, then, when Hibberd tacked a VE Day outlook on the end of the news. “There will be sporadic rain over the whole country, with thunderstorms in places, but there will be bright intervals” he said, trilling the R on ‘sporadic’ with a flourish. “There’s also news today of a long lost friend: the large depression. It’s turned up again between Ireland and the Azores, where it’s reported, at the moment, to be almost stationary.”
Rain, storms, but plenty of bright intervals. At last, Britain was returning to normal.