Open Writing

The total eclipse of the sun in August 1999 reminded me of the last time this phenomenon occurred, on the 29th June,1927. This was during Wakes Week when, as a child of nine, I was on holiday with my parents and two younger brothers in Southport, one of the places recommended for a good view of the spectacle.

Thousands of people gathered on Southport sands to watch the eclipse, but I think most of them must have gone just for the event, walking or cycling there, because I doubt that Southport would have been able to accommodate that number of people all at once.

We were there because it was our annual holiday and I am positive my parents would not have paid one penny more for our apartments than was usual. If the hotels and boarding houses in Southport had cashed in as those in the vantage points in Cornwall attempted to do in the summer of 1999, my family would certainly not have been amongst those privileged to witness the event.

I recollect having to get up at an unearthly hour of the morning and that later in the day my brother fell asleep standing up at a shop window. The eclipse took place at 6.30 a.m. The exact time of the 1927 eclipse was revealed in a television programme, and I was pleased that my recollection of an early morning vigil had been correct.

I remember watching the eclipse, but we were not amongst those on the sands. My father perched me and one of my brothers (the youngest was in his pram) on the parapet of a bridge for a better view.

There were crowds of people around us, and I remember my mother, reporting our experience later, saying that one group of people began to sing Nearer my God to Thee. I have no recollection of this, and my mother may have invented it for extra effect as she described how the sun gradually disappeared and we were shadowed in darkness. However, as I wouldn’t have realised the significance of people singing a hymn, it is quite likely that what she said was true.

What I do remember very clearly is my mother emphasising the importance of my being there to witness the event, saying, “The next time there is a total eclipse of the sun will be in 1999 when you will be an old lady. You will be able to tell your grandchildren that the last time it occurred you were watching it, sitting on the parapet of a bridge in Southport.”

I have, of course, dutifully related all this to my five granddaughters, the youngest of whom is 23. At the time I envisaged a small group of boys and girls about the ages that my brothers and I were then, clustered around my knee as I told them this historic tale.

It is one of the events in my life that I have never forgotten and watching it a second time round at the age of 81 was a great privilege.