Bert Foord

Bert Foord0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:08

What part of the United Kingdom do you come from, Bert?

Presenter0:10

Carlisle in Cumberland. Yes. What was your first ambition as a boy?

Bert Foord0:15

Uh

Presenter0:15

What did you want to be?

Bert Foord0:16

An engine driver.

Bert Foord0:18

In fact, I couldn't imagine anything but engine drive in then.

Presenter0:22

Yeah.

Bert Foord0:22

Okay.

Presenter0:23

Meant it.

Bert Foord0:24

Quite by accident really, I was studying in the sixth form of my grammar school to become a pharmaceutical chemist and then didn't really like botany and zoology terribly well.

Bert Foord0:35

and I felt basically I was a physicist or a mathematician. A job arrived in the newspaper to be a meteorologist, and I coaxed my father to allow me to have a look at it anyway. And um, of course, once hooked in weather and weather forecasting,

Bert Foord0:51

I think you are there for life. What sort of special training did that need? Well, we have very specialized courses varying in length from a few weeks to several months, but really I would have said must take half a lifetime, really, Roy, in the sense that one thing you cannot uh

Presenter1:05

And

Bert Foord1:08

uh telescope are the British seasons and until you've experienced all the British seasons you've no idea of the possibilities of British climate. So really experience is the prime training, although obviously the the basic uh physics and the basic mathematics have to be taught and these are taught by special courses run by the Mat Office at our own college.

Presenter1:28

Yes. But practical experience, for example, on weather ships and

Bert Foord1:32

And in airports?

Bert Foord1:33

Exactly. The idea is that as a young man in meteorology you will get as broad and as varied an experience not only perhaps in the United Kingdom, but other parts of the world as well, because the British Met Office supplies meteorologists all over the world.

Presenter1:47

Yes. Now the Met Office is a government institution. Yes. A service for shipping, fishing, agriculture, picnics.

Bert Foord1:55

Uh And also, I presume, for industry.

Bert Foord1:57

Very much so, yes, that's right. Weather centers deal with any member of the public that has a weather problem.

Presenter2:04

Metal For example, a store who wants to know whether to stock Macintoshes or bikinis.

Bert Foord2:11

That's right. Um stock control for big multiple stores can be coped with. Perishable goods, um, obviously, to have them in the right place at the right time. How many people in the the Met Office altogether? Uh something just over three thousand.

Presenter2:26

Nowadays we don't hear much about the Meta Office. We hear of the London Weather Centre. This isn't just a change of name.

Bert Foord2:33

Name.

Presenter2:33

Yeah.

Bert Foord2:34

No, the change of name was deliberate when we opened the first weather shop in the world in 1959 and we've opened weather centers in other big cities since. The idea was that the Metovs had become synonymous with an official service, perhaps to the marine interests and the military and the aviation interests. Here was an attempt to get the public uh into the idea that here was a service geared to the public service, a weather centre, for example.

Presenter2:58

So the Met Office feeds information to the various weather centers.

Bert Foord3:02

Yeah.

Presenter3:03

Where is headquarters?

Bert Foord3:03

Headquarters of the Met Office is at Bracknell in Berkshire.

Presenter3:07

And there they receive the basic information from weather ships, coastal station satellite.

Bert Foord3:12

Yes, from all over the Northern Hemisphere, and it is in fact Bracknell is one of the five major centres in the world for dissemination of weather information both internally and internationally.

Presenter3:24

Now, Bert, when you come into the London Weather Centre at the beginning of a duty, you have all the information to hand. Is it then up to you to make your own assessment of the situation?

Bert Foord3:34

No. Nowadays weather forecasting is a far more complicated affair than that. No single man could manage the task. In fact, it's a team operation and our basic uh central forecast office is at Bracknell, together with a very large computer and a very large uh team of uh people working towards that. What happens in effect is that whilst you have all the information available to yourself, you have conferences uh several times during the duty in which yourself and the television weatherman and in fact uh other people interested all confer so that uh uh a line is agreed if you like. A weather picture is agreed between you all and in effect you all give the same forecast. Um after perhaps a good deal of argument we agree on the line that we will take.

Presenter4:24

At the center are broadcasters. Um eleven

Presenter4:28

And do you each cover sound M television?

Bert Foord4:30

No. O of the eleven, um four of us are uh television forecasters and sound radio broadcasters. The other seven sound radio only.

Presenter4:39

Yes, a television center, there's a permanent setup in a studio with your map and magnetized arrows and

Bert Foord4:45

That's right.

Presenter4:47

And you do sound broadcasts from the weather centre in public, I believe, in Hoban. Yes, in vision, yes, visible through a window from the street. Yes.

Presenter4:56

Now, Bert, I think it's the general opinion of of most citizens that weather forecasting is not an exact science.

Bert Foord5:04

Yes, that's right. Um they seem to forget too that other professions uh don't profess to be um always correct. I mean the legal profession or even in the city the stockbrokers and even the medical men all make honest mistakes and um for the meteorologist to make mistakes in the same pattern shouldn't be so sort of outstandingly notable.

Presenter5:27

Do people ring up and complain, and threaten to sue, and all the rest of it?

Bert Foord5:31

Well, yes, certainly. If we have uh given a forecast and it doesn't turn out as expected, we would expect to have the complaint put back to us. And in fact, if only to explain the reason for the error. And in fact, this is noticeable that a person who uses the service regularly and constantly

Bert Foord5:49

doesn't come back to complain so much as to find out what went wrong this time, so that both of us, as it were, can benefit by the experience, and not make the same mistake again.

Presenter5:55

So that

Presenter6:01

And many people are their own weather forecasters. Is there sense in that? Things like red sky at night and cows lying down, that sort of thing.

Bert Foord6:07

I think many of the old weather sayings or weather law um had a grain of truth, at least in them. They're all based on fairly good logic.

Bert Foord6:17

Red sky at night, perfectly happy about. Jolly good sense in that. Cow's lying down, I'm not so sure about Roy, but there again, if it works in your area, there's no reason why you shouldn't continue using it.