The time is right to show some serious respect to a great television broadcaster, an absolute hero. The truest form of hero in fact – a hero, slightly soiled in the eyes of the nation, but still love dearly. He has done a great wrong to the country (or so media history tells us), but he came right in the end. His dedication to his cause is admirable, his composure a model to everyone.
He first worked for the Met Office in November 1962, “I was posted to Gatwick Airport (Fogwick Gatport as we called it) as an assistant doing such things as making the tea, plotting charts and making observations.” He was paid a stunning £25 a month for his labour, with additional travel expenses of £30. Further training led to promotion and he started making his mark at Head Office helping to formulate a new numerical forecast. Which I’m sure was exhilarating.
Taking a sandwich course at the City University, he was posted to the London Weather Centre. Naturally this posting was due to last a maximum of six months, and thus… “Thirty nine years later I am still in a similar department, as the BBC Weather Centre started as an offshoot of that office.”
“I was fortunate to be allowed to stay on at The London Weather Centre and became proficient in forecasting for oil rigs, pigeon racing, gas and electricity supplies, transport, as well as the general public. Whilst there I had the honour of wiping out more pigeons on one day than anybody else in history (over 2000 in unexpected fog) and the largest error of 15°C in a forecast for the Gas Board!”
He is the longest serving weather forecaster in the country and possibly the world. Michael Fish has done it all, he is Mr Auntie. Starting on BBC radio in 1971 he quickly progressed to telly by ’74. He hung around the leather sofas with Frank Bough and co. from ’85 to ’87 and later did breaky again when it wasn’t Time but just News. He’s done over thirty years service to the nation, telling us when we need our brolleys.
“When I started we just did three broadcasts a day, working from ten in the morning to ten in the evening and there were only three of us. Now we cover 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year and do well over a 100 broadcasts a day with a staff of around 20 Broadcast Meteorologists.” He was the last to use magnetic symbols and the first to use computer graphics. “I was the first to present satellite pictures. At the beginning they were biked over from Bracknell and had the coastline drawn on by felt-tip pen. They were clipped to a music stand with broken magnetic strips and pointed at using a knitting needle from the Co-op!”
He is no stranger to the wider world of television having made appearances on programmes as diverse as The Sky At Night and Basil Brush. He can truly be regarded as a celebrity figure, in that he is actually celebrated by the public.
There is much more to the chap than is regularly recognised though, a certain storm in 1987 taking up much of his public profile. Mr Fish has spent a fair old bit of time training weather forecasters in various African countries – the benefits of which can be easily estimated.
He is an honorary Doctor of Science, an MBE and has the freedom of the city of London. So steer clear when he’s on a wild night out in the west end, because he can do anything. He has been awarded in close succession both worst and best dressed man on television, he is an everyman.
But of course, every legendary man has their legendary moment. On the 15th of October 1987, his moment came. Really though this moment was a myth. Cue Michael:
“Earlier on today apparently a lady rang the BBC and said she heard that there was a hurricane on the way. Well don’t worry if you’re watching, there isn’t.”
Those immortal words we’re indeed spoken by Mike on that night, but he was not talking about the UK. Oh, no! Whilst every clip show will knock it out for kicks, Mr Fish was referring to another country all together.
“My remarks referred to Florida and were a link to a news story about devastation in the Caribbean that had just been broadcast. The phone call was a member of staff reassuring his mother just before she set off there on holiday!”
“I did broadcast saying ‘batten down the hatches there’s some really stormy weather on the way’ – if the full clip is used all would be revealed.”
So that’s that settled then.
