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Post by Charlotte on Jul 17, 2022 14:02:30 GMT 1
This is just another of my occasional threads on here. Inspired by the current heatwave in the UK, most of the rest of Europe. I tend to be rather skeptical about climate change, but now they're saying the temperature may reach 40C in the next couple of days, a new record. Maybe there really is some human influence going on. Certainly it feels kind of weird/maybe worrying, how few insects are about. Though in my experience, biting insects, especially, usually tend to intensify in late summer around late August/early September. I suppose people who don't live in the south or, especially, SE England, may not understand just how warm/humid/arguably unpleasant (though I tend to like it), summers can get down here. I've spent a lot of time in Scotland in the past, especially thanks to going to boarding school way up north there for seven years, but have almost entirely forgotten what the weather felt like, especially in summer. Not been up north anywhere for many years, now.
Anyway, I was just trying to think of pony books with a lot of hot weather or a heatwave, especially ones set in Britain. It's quite hard. There's Phantom Horse by CPT, which has a boiling summer and cold winter, but that's set in Virginia in the US. They must have got a fair bit of hot weather at Punchbowl Farm because it's down in Surrey, but probably more in the Marsh books, about as far south as England gets. In one of Monica's books, Mike Merrow is described as sunburnt, which suggests there was enough sun. At the beginning of Storm Ahead, the weather is described as being hot and sunny like August (or words to that effect). That's interesting, because today it seems the seasons have shifted. A sunny August is notoriously rare, maybe it was the norm back then? The girls seem to spend quite a lot of time in a swimming costume, suggesting that summer wasn't usually too cold anyway. I guess summers tend to be warmish in the Mary Gervaise Farthingale series, as it's set on the Kent Coast. That's all I can think of, any other books?
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Post by Charlotte on Jul 17, 2022 14:14:56 GMT 1
Oh, actually maybe this would be better as a Top 10 thread, I don't know? Claire, please move/rename it, if you think it's better there.
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Post by Claire on Jul 17, 2022 15:39:08 GMT 1
It's fine as a thread here Charlotte. Interesting observations. I too am sceptical of some of the climate change, (well more global warming) narrative and see it as just another example of the 'nanny state' trying to interfere in people's lives. Climate of course changes and fluctuates but looking at temperature records and from my own memories I don't think it's getting hotter. Not sure how old you are Charlotte but I can remmember the famous summer of 1976 when temperatures in the UK hit over 100F and it lasted for many weeks, not just 3 or 4 days but nobody batted an eye then. Climate of course goes through cyclical events but if anything I find summers in the UK colder than they used to be and yes I have also often thought that August is now fairly cool and summer seems to come earlier. Living in Spain at the moment, I do raise an eyebrow at all the 'red alert' weather warnings going on in the UK at the moment. It's been those sorts of temperatures here (if not hotter) for the past 7 weeks and life just goes on as normal. (And just as an aside we had the coldest spring for 130 years this year!) But going back to pony books and kid's books in general, nothing specific but most books set in the UK summer seem to have kids living permanently in shorts, off camping and picnicking, bathing in rivers and so on. So it does suggest summers were, if not warmer then, certainly not colder. Or maybe the kids were just were tougher. I think this was perhaps less seen in pony books than the holiday adventure type books (like Swallows and Amazons etc) as there was less focus on weather and more on the horse angle in pony books. Interesting you mention the Monica Edwards books as I recall the Armada edition of Wish for a Pony showing the girls riding in the sea in swimming costumes...
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Post by Claire on Jul 19, 2022 21:01:47 GMT 1
Perusing some of my pony books there's actually one called Heatwave!(Animal Alert series) though it's more about looking after horses abandoned in a heatwave rather than kids enjoying the hot weather. Also, not a pony book, but I was chatting about the hot weather on another forum and someone mentioned that there was another really hot summer in 1911 with temperatures in the high 30sC/90sF. Apparently the book The Go-Between by L. P Hartley was based on this long hot summer. (A great read if you haven't read it before).
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Post by darkhorse on Jul 23, 2022 16:40:25 GMT 1
Can't think of specifics either but most of the children's books written in the 1950s to 70s and set over summer do seem to mention the heat, and have the children often bathing or buying 'ices' and I also seem to remember a lot of long hot summers as a child, more so than as an adult. I certainly think the last so called heat emergency has been totally over the top. We had a couple of very hot days followed by a thunderstorm and then quite cool. cloudy weather. But I've experienced far hotter weather on holiday in Greece. I think the trouble is they try to conflate the warming issue with conservation and pollution issues which I do think need addressing and are due to people's actions, whereas I think changes in the weather are as Claire says, more just fluctuations.
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Post by trixiepony on Aug 1, 2022 12:08:22 GMT 1
How about Ponies in Clover by Mary Gervaise, Im just reading it and there's a heat wave, maybe more a school story, but it duse have hot weather.
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