3.21pm on 10th November 2024.
That was the exact moment that the sun finally broke through the anticyclonic gloom and shone on LWC’s 1200 acres.
Why was this such a momentous occasion? Because the quintessential English village of Odiham, just 2 miles from here, has again found itself at the epicentre of climatic extremes; having recorded zero minutes of sunshine since October. That is, until that moment (and thankfully the days that have followed it). Those with good memories may recall that Odiham was also crowned the driest place in the UK in the summer of 2023, when it failed to receive a single drop of rain during July. Such high-profile claims make it all the more surprising then, that reporters still can’t pronounce Odiham correctly.
Whilst the anticyclonic gloom may have given us some grey days, it also provided an excellent atmospheric backdrop to LWC’s Friday night hockey under the lights and our stunning art exhibition by Artist in Residence, Mark Spray, who explores landscapes meeting atmosphere in his collection, The Long Silences. In fact, our ever-changing skies are often more significant than we may realise and it’s through curiosity that we ever made the link.
Let me take you back to 1815, when in a quiet part of the Indonesian archipelago of Sumbara, Tambora, a mountain similar in size to Mont Blanc exploded with such ferocity, it remains the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history.
The explosion killed 10,000 islanders but there were to be many more consequences. What follows is the unravelling of a fascinating trail of consequences, potentially making Tambora the most impactful eruption in history.
With so much volcanic debris in the upper atmosphere, the sun’s rays were partially blocked. Temperatures fell, rainfall and snowfall increased and crops in Europe, the US, the UK and South East Asia began to fail; leading to one of the first recorded global economic depressions.
The well-known agricultural region of Yunnan, China was particularly badly affected; as global grain prices rapidly fluxed and with famine at home and abroad, the farmers of the region turned to planting opium poppies as cash crops. This successful insurance against further harvest disaster thus brought to life the global heroin/opium trade.
Meanwhile, in the US, the collapse of crops led waves of Ohio farmers across the Appalachian Mountains from the suffering NY state, leaving cheap agricultural land for sale in their wake.
It was in Palmyra that a man named Joseph Smith (a classic name for an immigrant choosing to start afresh) bought parcels of land, where his son would later have religious experiences and go on to found the Mormon religion, as a result of his visions.
Before 1816, cholera was a local disease in India and Bangladesh, but due to changes in the chemistry of the water as a result of the eruption, mutations occurred and cholera began its global spread. The WHO’s most recent data suggests that there are now 150,000 cholera-related deaths each year.
Having headed to Switzerland for a summer of walking with friends alongside the crystal clear lakes, jagged mountains and high alpine meadows in the months after Tambora erupted, Mary Anne Shelley was having to endure an unseasonably cold and wet holiday experience. It was known as the ‘Year Without a Summer’. In Britain these days we call it the ‘summer holidays’, but this encouraged Shelley and her friends (including the poet, Byron) to hunker down in the warmth of their cottage. It was here that the concept of ‘Frankenstein’ was born.
It’s also believed that the appalling weather of the time negatively impacted Napoleon’s efforts at the Battle of Waterloo. This resulted in the destruction of the fleet, including those who tried to sail clockwise around the UK to avoid the British ships and storms.
Perhaps a little more tenuous, but more locally, Jane Austen, one of Hampshire’s finest writers ‘caught a chill’ in the damp, cold of the post-Tamboran summer. She was on her way to Winchester from her home in Chawton and although there were underlying health issues, this was seen as an exacerbating factor in her untimely demise; once more, volcanic side-effects had struck.
And so, the Tambora eruption began a domino effect that was arguably to change the world forever. Without curiosity, linking these events, we would be none-the-wiser.
But there is an upside to the eruption and one which has inspired generations beyond.
As JMW Turner, the not-quite-yet-world-famous artist sat enjoying a coffee in his coastal town of Margate, he was inspired by the iridescent glow of the light, thanks to our sulphate friends floating in the upper atmosphere. This led him to work even more creatively with light, landscapes and seascapes in his paintings. What was voted Britain’s favourite painting in 2005, ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ highlighted his progression in becoming one of the great masters of British watercolour, becoming known as the ‘Painter of Light’.
Others followed in his impressionist footsteps; Monet, Renoir, Pizzaro and Manet to name but a few. JMW Turner died in 1851 and was buried in St Paul’s cathedral, 36 years after the Tamboran eruption. It is somewhat ironic that he was struck down by cholera.
All of this, serves as a reminder that our skies influence much more than our choice of clothing and that it is curiosity which links together our understanding of the world. To foster a desire to be curious is one of the greatest gifts we can give.
I leave you with one of my favourite jokes from Tom Parry at the Edinburgh Fringe, which has a passing relevance to the conditions mentioned here. “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. Blue sky at night, day.”
Yours,
Adam
