Alexandra Harris tells the story of how the weather has written and painted itself into the cultural life of Britain.

The blasted country – a windy island.

"There was a proper gust, I remember, which sent dry leaves off across the pavement into shop doorways and blew back my hood. And something caught my eye as I looked up. Way above me in the grey sky, at the top of Chichester cathedral spire, there was a glint of light. It was the weathervane turning. It must just momentarily have caught the sun. And then there it was in distant silhouette again, with its big flat rooster tail. I'd never noticed it, and yet it had been up there all the time – up in the weather which goes on continuously, regardless of us, up there as well as down here in the street."

Music by Jon Nicholls.

Producer: Tim Dee

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016. Show less