BS: St Swithin's Day

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 01:23 PM

Got both of it here in London - showers and sun, plus it's bloody hot! PLEASE send your thunderstorms up here, it was too muggy to breathe this morning, had to use my inhaler for the first time in months!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: Raggytash
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 09:32 AM

96 in Huddersfield

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 08:29 AM

Looks like St. Swithin has let us down again- rain's sheeting down, with thunder in distance, right now here in Sussex

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 08:27 AM

Thanks Fiolar, 'twas 'The Happiest Days..' I was thinking of - never did see 'Whacko' (no TV).

Cheers - Sam

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: Fiolar
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 08:18 AM

Billy the Bus: Regarding Jimmy Edwards - the programme you are thinking about is "Whacko" which was transmitted on BBC-tv between 1956 to 1960 and revived in 1971/72. The school was Chiselbury and Jimmy played the conniving headmaster. The fictional "St Swithin's School" is dealt with in the play and later 1950 film "The Happiest Days of Your Life" starring among others Alistair Sim and Margaret Rutherford.

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 02:50 AM

Sidmouth week? Don't care if it pisses down, I can't go.

Besides - when you live in the Anchor bar for a week, who notices the weather outside?!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 01:26 AM

OK, you Pongolians, get your communal brain cell into gear --- "St Swithin's School"? T'was in the 40s/50s... Was it a Beeb programme, or a comic book? My lonely brain-cell gives a ting-a-ling to Jimmy Edwards = "Take it from Here" - but I'm probably wrong.

Cheers - Sam

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: mg
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 01:09 AM

oops..wrong saint and wrong quote. Back to the weather forecast. mg

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: mg
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 12:59 AM

we few, we proud, we band of brothers. mg

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 08:57 PM

There was an item about the St Swithin legend on Radio 4's "Today" programme. St S died in the middle of the 9th century and it was about a hundred years later that a successor bishop decided to move the bones. A work colleague of mine has suggested that it was more lucrative for the cathedral to have the bones in the cathedral than in a churchyard grave available for anyone to visit. (I guess the Dean and Chapter of York Minster would agree with that too!) The Today programme also broadcast a rain-blessing song.

I tempted fate at Sharp's this evening by singing Helen Akitt's "Tears of the Rain". On previous occasions when I've sung it the heavens have opened and torrential rain descended, but this hasn't happened yet.

OK Liz and Greg, so what do you reckon the weather will be like during Sidmouth Folk Week?

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 05:46 PM

I didn't say it was infallable.....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: greg stephens
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 12:26 PM

St Swithin's Day or not, I am willing to bet the weather will turn crap almost instantly because I am heading for the seaside tomorrow

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 12:22 PM

St Swithun was a bishop of Winchester, UK, in AD862. The legend has it that on his deathbed he made them promise to bury him in the churchyard, amongst Gods' creation, under Gods' sky or else he would visit them with a curse of foul weather. The local bigwigs decided a few years later that the churchyard was no fit resting place for a bishop and moved him into the catherdral. On the day his bones were translated, there was a torrential downpour that lasted all day. Allegedly, it rained every day until the bigwigs gave up and, for the sake of the ruined harvest, relocated him to his former resting place whereupon the rain stopped and all was shiny and bright again. Hence the reputation of St Swithun for miracles which lead to his canonisation.

40 days is an arbitrary figure, in the Bible, 40 is used frequently but it is probably a corruption of the word for many.

HOWEVER:.... in Britain there is quite often a period of settled weather, starting in the middle of July and lasting for about 40 days... just up until the August Bank Holiday in fact. The weather could be settled as sunny, windy or rainy, but it would be fairly settled.

The same sort of miracle is attributed to several saints, particularly St Winifred (yes, I know it's in an Ellis Peters' crime novel but it's based on legend), whose procession remained dry throughout the town whilst the rest of the town were soaked by a long shower.

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 11:32 AM

St Swithin's Day, if it does rain
Full forty days, it will remain
St Swithin's Day, if it be fair
For forty days, t'will rain no more."

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 10:52 AM

Not as lucky as my daughter, Pancake...;-)

I looked up St Swithin in the catholic directory and it says no-one realy knows how the 40 day superstition originated. Surely someone on the Mudcat can prove them wrong!

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: Raggytash
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 09:52 AM

It's 97 degrees F (33c)in the car park here in Huddersfield, and there is mercifully a good breeze blowingToday is my son's 16th Birthday, Happy St Swithens Day son, you'll never know how lucky you are to be called Charles Richard.

Subject: BS: St Swithin's Day
From: Fiolar
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 09:20 AM

July 15th in addition to being St Swithin's Day has a number of interesting anniversaries. 1685: The Duke of Monmouth was executed; 1881: Billy the Kid was shot by Pat Garrett; 1883: "Tom Thumb" (Charles Statton) who reached the height of 40 inches died; 1904: Anton Chekhov, Russian dramatist and story writer died; 1948: John Pershing, known as "Black Jack", US Army commander in World War One died. The weather in East Anglia is in the high 80s.