STORM Dylan, Storm Eleanor: howling gales, power cuts, trees felled, flood warnings, travel disrupted. Welcome to 2018. For that and no other reason we thought a photograph of a summer’s day might be useful today: a long-ago summer, one of those that were so hot that in one particular part of Scotland - Ayrshire - railway lines buckled in the heat at three separate locations. The highest temperature in Britain on July 29, 1948, was 93F, at Kensington Palace; in Scotland, Prestwick recorded a reading at 3pm of 90.2F. After early-morning fog, Aberdeen enjoyed its hottest day of the year. The maximum temperature at Edinburgh’s Royal Observatory was 80F, the highest since July 31, 1943. Glasgow’s initial wet fog gave way to scorching sunshine. In Dundee, the sun took until midday to break through a thick haze that rose from the Tay. Trips down the Clyde were over-subscribed. The day-trippers pictured above had an enjoyable time on the Prince Edward, docked at Rothesay. It’s unlikely that any of them spared a thought for the nation’s MPs, hard at work in the stifling House of Commons. There, six small windows had been opened to their fullest extent but it made not the slightest difference. MPs - among them Winston Churchill, in grey flannel trousers, black jacket, white shirt, and black bow-tie - fanned themselves continuously with their order papers, and no doubt longed for their summer break to begin.

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