IAN McCASKILL
Ian McCaskill
Scotland born Ian McCaskill was first exposed to Meteorology during National Service in the Royal Air Force. Formal training had actually been in geology and chemistry at Glasgow University but those subjects only qualified you either to teach or suffer exile in some steamy part of the globe studying fossil foraminifera!
Neither prospect excited the rather precious young man so the chance of becoming an airman meteorologist at public expense was heaven sent.
Two years in Cyprus was bravely borne and a much tougher ruder fellow emerged to find himself almost unemployable - except as a civilian meteorologist. Service at sixteen different offices at home and abroad followed (there was an Empire in those days) and
30 years on he feels to be getting the hang of it.
His greatest interest now is not so much weather itself but more in communicating the weather message to the customer - a task not eased but given greater importance by
a Glasgow accent and gatling gun delivery.
His appearance on the television screen in l978 was accidental - like everything else in his life.
The Meteorological Office soon discovered that they had let loose on the nation not a Ministry Spokesman, as they had thought, but a frustrated clown who was unable to remember simple and time honoured jargon such as `sunny periods' or `scattered showers'.
They immediately promoted him off to be in charge of the Birmingham
office. Ian was later dragged back from the provinces, an older, fatter but determinate cheerful sayer of weather sooths.
He lives in Buckinghamshire; lack of time stops him having any hobbies but he sees it as a duty - almost a mission to keep the village pub
profitable.
Since leaving the Met office his media and live performances have greatly increased, including a very successful appearance in "Have I Got News For You", advertisements for BT,
Sky TV and Granada Travelodge plus a comic panto role at the Theatre Royal in Windsor.