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The eclipse date had been in my knowledge for years. I had planned, with my brother, where we would go to see the eclipse but he died as long ago as 1980 so that idea - of being in Cornwall, went by the board.
However, there was still my dad and he was very keen to be involved with a total eclipse. I believe he had plans to hire a plane so that he might be above any cloud cover, but those plans went by the by, too, for he died in 1996.
However, these losses in the family were not going to stop me from seeing the eclipse but, like many another Englishman, I listened to the tourist advisors get in a total muddle over the places to watch the eclipse in Cornwall and the way to watch it. I, along with my own family, plumped for France.
So it was that on the morning of August 11th we were driving on the motorway near Nancy and finding truly awful traffic - the worst I have ever known in France. Not only was the traffic awful, so was the weather too. Visibility was very restricted from the point of view of a driver. For an eclipse watcher it was dreadful. There was 100% cloud cover and it looked like the thick, nasty cloud that had no chance of clearing. It was just a bit depressing.
We decided that, perhaps, the French might be a bit like the English - mapless - so we turned off the motorway, secure in the knowledge that we were in the total eclipse zone. At times, it seemed as though it might be just as crowded off the motorway, but in fact, we made quite good progress and well before 'obscurity' we were sited on our hill top, just outside the little village of Mars la Tour near Metz. Somehow, a place called Mars seemed appropriate, for it seemed that we would be saying, 'We went to Mars but didn't see an eclipse'. At least the Mars would call for an explanation.
Once we were settled on our drizzly hill, we got out the 'safe glasses'. Now in England, people had been told they weren't really safe. In France they were assured they were. People had been told they must get to the total zone. One pundit, on telly, the night before, had said, 'To witness an eclipse is like kissing your fiancée, but to see a total eclipse is like a night of love'. No wonder the French were determined to witness totality.
We had to make do with the fun of the glasses.
That's my daughter and she'll have been seeing precisely nothing through those glasses. Behind her you can see either thick cloud or very thick cloud.
Then the miracle happened. Gaps started to appear in the clouds.
Through these gaps we got seductive little glimpses of the crescent sun. The world had gone very silent, but from groups of people around our hilltop we could hear the occasional yelp of joy and we knew 'the gap was with them'
I was really very surprised at how light it was. The cloud was thick and it was a dismal day but it seemed to me that it was just that. It didn't seem extra dark because there was virtually no sun. But then, with an amazing swiftness darkness descended. There was no sun to be seen through the clouds, it was just that our dull and dismal day became darkness. There was no dusk and no time for adjustment to the new situation. It caused quite an emotional response in me - not least because I was thinking of absent family members who were not with me to witness the moment.
With no sun to see through the cloud, I had time to snap a flash shot of my son. He'll hate me for putting this one on the web!
That blackness amazed me. It was truly black, except that away beyond Metz there was a glow on the horizon - areas yet to reach totality.
Our miracles lasted for just before the end of the total period the clouds parted and there was a black disc with a corona round it and then, almost immediately a diamond ring effect, accompanied by great cheers from some of our party. The total eclipse was over and I had no photo of it.
Later, though, as the sun's crescent enlarged and the clouds cleared, albeit partially, I was able to try my trick of taking a photo through my binoculars. I am pleased with the effect.
I rate that eclipse as one of the most magic moments of my life.
One little, and surprising extra, occurred in the evening when we watched a program about the eclipse on French TV. They had chosen a place we had stayed in 1998 to be their centre for eclipse watching. It was Ferme de Bray