The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Lost Summer
Here comes the rain again; we all know the feeling, it’s a rainy day every day, and one can only dream away as umbrellas go up everywhere on a British summers day in York.
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Overview
Buckets of rain in York in the wettest summer since 1961 (49 days). As one umbrella goes up after another, one shelterer wonders, why does it always rain on me? Another, who’ll stop the rain? As shoppers move to the rhythm of the rain, thinking maybe a hard rains a-gonna fall, no-one is singing. In the early morning rain, a man without a brolly realises that ‘raindrops keep falling on my head’, while his companion philosophises that into each life some rain must fall.
This film was made by the Rev. David Simpson, a member of York Cine Club, who made some 21 films between 1978 and 1986, mainly on local places and events around York, including the Pope’s visit in 1982. 1985 saw an exceptionally wet summer, following an exceptional dry summer the year before. To make up for it there was a good Indian summer: September and October had more days above 20c than June and August combined. Apparently a warming Atlantic is causing wetter summers: that of 2012 was the wettest for 100 years. Yet despite common perceptions, Britain on average doesn’t get more rain than Europe; though the west gets significantly more than the east. But, as BBC weather forecasts show, it is very unpredictable.
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