The last time I can remember having a summer like the one still in progress was, I think, in 1976.<\/p>\n
That was the year I did my A-levels, and the year when I went on to be an undergraduate in Southampton.<\/p>\n
It was a long, very hot, very dry summer of the sort we have now endured, although back then no one was worrying much about climate change or the damage it might cause.<\/p>\n
This came up in a conversation I had yesterday, and I provided a little anecdote from that same year.<\/p>\n
During my first 10-week term in Southampton, from late September to early December 1976, it rained every day, as I recall. In retrospect, the best purchase I made that term was not a copy of Keynes\u2019 General Theory, which I still have. Instead, it was an umbrella. I used that umbrella constantly on my journey from my hall of residence to the campus, and it was much more useful and necessary at the time.<\/p>\n
I am not forecasting a very wet autumn. I am just relating an experience, coupled with a note of caution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"