Britain’s balmy army of swimmers plunge into New Year...well, it WAS a record 61F
THE New Year began in balmy style yesterday as Britain basked in its warmest January 1.
The mercury hit 61F (16.1C) at St James’s Park in London, making it hotter than California and St Tropez. The previous record for the UK’s hottest New Year’s Day was 60F (15.6C) recorded in Bude, Cornwall in 1916.
The warm temperatures saw people taking New Year’s Day dips across the country. At Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, and in East Wittering, West Sussex groups, some clad only in bikinis, merrily rushed into the sea.
Temperatures were so warm in London that the popular Somerset House ice rink had to close when the surface began to melt.
But Met Office forecaster Dan Stroud urged people to ‘make the most of the warmth because a change is on the way as we go into the early part of next week’. Daytime temperatures are expected to plunge to 37.4F (3C) in Edinburgh by Tuesday and 44.6F (7C) in London.
‘Temperatures will definitely go back to average, with a return of frost and snow across north areas and across hills,’ added Mr Stroud.
New Year’s Eve revellers also made the most of the mild December weather, including thousands of Scottish and Welsh partygoers who headed across the borders into England to celebrate. Taxi driver Alan Aberdien, 65, and husband David Nicoll, 56, drove for three hours from their Dunfermline home for a knees-up, decked out in kilts and sporrans in Newcastle.
‘We’re both fully vaccinated and have followed all the rules for the past 18 months but there comes a time when enough is enough and you think we just have to get on and learn to live with Covid,’ said Mr Aberdien.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had urged Scots to stay at home for Hogmanay with new restrictions seeing the closure of nightclubs, table service in pubs and a cap of three households in any group.
But the Government at Westminster made clear that Scottish
‘Somerset House rink had to close – it was melting’
and Welsh Covid refugees would be warmly welcomed. Aimee Stewart, 22, was one of those to make the trip. The admin worker from Edinburgh said: ‘We can’t have a good night out unless we come to England. We would have literally been in our homes, crying.
‘It’s so boring in Scotland at the moment. We’ve been double vaxxed for a reason. It’s ridiculous how you can just go down the road and everywhere is open as usual.’
Other Scots remained closer to home, instead hitting the bars of Berwick, the English town a stone’s throw from the border. Laura McRae, 49, who travelled from Aberdeen to the Northumberland town, said: ‘We would normally have stayed local but we wanted to be able to come out. A lot of people are getting fed up by the restrictions.’ It was a similar picture in Bristol with hundreds of Welsh revellers escaping the rule of six and table service restrictions.
Student Emily Brown, 18, said: ‘In the first lockdown thousands of English people came into Wales to look at our mountains, so no one was going to stop me coming to England to celebrate New Year with my friends.’
Au pair Rose Williams, 22, from Newport, had another reason to celebrate because January 1 is her birthday. ‘Why have I come to Bristol? Because there’s nothing happening in Wales. It has shut down,’ she said. Thirty miles away the WalesEngland divide was being felt by the landlady of the Boat Inn in the Welsh village of Penallt, near Monmouth. Debbie Burch, 58, said: ‘The pub is dead, I’ve never seen it so quiet on a Friday night. We had seven tables booked. Four were no-shows.’
On the opposite bank of the River Wye, the Bell Inn at Redbrook in England was doing a roaring trade and its New Year’s party was sold out. ‘It is farcical,’ said Ms Burch.
‘We are only 300 yards away but there are two completely different sets of rules. I think the Welsh Government’s decisions have been good until now but Mark Drakeford’s jumped the gun this time.’