It happened nearly ten years ago, but it's as topical this week as it was then.What better start for a once-in-a-lifetime expedition like this, than the midnight train? And what better way, given that the end-points of this journey happen to be Glasgow and Basingstoke, to endow the intervening route with a bit of, well, class? Perhaps it's the comforting knowledge that you won't have to stand for all or part of your journey, or that someone will take the trouble to bring you breakfast. Or best of all that, having crossed London, you find yourself, at the height of the rush hour, in commuter trains which are completely empty. It's a bit like stepping into some strange looking-glass version of the UK in which everyone (and you can see them all, crowded onto the opposite platform at each station), works nights.
I wonder if everyone has the equivalent, in their own life, of the friend to whose house I walked from the station. She was one of those characters in whose company events, no matter how well-planned, always managed to take a surreal turn. We'd planned to drive to a guest-house in the west country and get there at some reasonable time, like about eight pm. In the event we got there at about two in the morning, and it had nothing to do with the notorious traffic on the A38 either, and much more to do with the fact that her living-room floor was up, the gas had cut-out and when I arrived she was halfway through laying a patio.
We decided, for the sake of our hosts, to pull up at the far side of the car-park, recline the seats and kip in the car with our coats and some blankets. The following day we thought we'd do a bit of bog-standard sightseeing, but it turned into something of a cream-tea-crawl.
And the day after that was 11th August 1999, and we wanted to get to the beach early and get the best view. We didn't want to miss it and have to wait until 23rd September 2090 for the next one (wonderful to find out that the most detailed timetable you can get, is lovingly compiled by a chap called Fred!) So we were on the road by 4 am. We got flashed at by a speed camera, went round a completely deserted roundabout somewhere near Plymouth twice and then got stopped by the Polis. They shone a torch into the car and, on seeing we were female, middle-aged and sober, let us carry on after asking a couple of questions just for form's sake. I only found out later that our trusty ride had no MOT, and moss growing on the dashboard.
We took our seats on the best promontory by six, had breakfast from a nearby kiosk at seven and were exchanging stories with other "tourists" about how far we'd travelled by eight. Thin, high cloud looked as if it might go away but the weather couldn't quite muster enough warmth to melt it. So we saw the entire eclipse as a play of shadows and sounds.
First the western horizon grew dark, as if a storm was approaching, but without the usual clouds. Then we could see the shadow coming in fast across the sea. As the shade grew deeper I began to notice it seemed to come on in waves from the west, each wave bringing a darker tone. I noticed sea birds were making the kind of sounds I usually associate with evening and the walk back from the beach after a long day building sandcastles. The last few waves brought utter twilight, but with a twist: the shadow isn't large, so the horizon all around us still glowed. Everything appeared lit from underneath. The final wave seemed to bring with it a faint "wuppp!" sound, but I thought I'd imagined it. A minute or so passed with no sound, no wind: no movement. Then waves of paler grey rolled in from the west, and after a short while I found myself thinking of morning walks down to the beaches I'd been to as a child, before I realised why: sea-birds sound different first thing in the morning, and that's what they all believed it to be!
About an hour later I'd started to wonder why I felt so queasy, before I realised I was sitting in the August sun on a Devon beach, still wearing a woollen sweater. You forget about hot summer days after living in Glasgow for three years. From where we were sitting we could walk down to the flat sands and get across, on the "sea tractor" at low tide, to Burgh Island, where the Agatha Christie novel "Evil under the sun" is set.
I found souvenir tee-shirts in Tavistock for the children. it turned out that they'd had a good view of the partial eclipse: the staff of their nursery had thoughtfully loaded everybody into double buggies and wheeled them all out into Kelvingrove Park with their shades. They smiled at the cartoons of the sun and moon on their tee-shirts and announced: "Ut's gooin' tae get darruk a wee but"!
Unlike Lunchista they may very well still be around to see the next eclipse on British soil.
Anyone who's in a bit more of a hurry to see one has until the day after tomorrow to get to, well, almost anywhere in Asia.
