And now 99% invisible. I'm Roman Morris.

And now the shipping forecast issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coast

Guide Agency at 0015 on Monday the 21st of September. Four times every day, on radio is all

across the British Isles. A BBC announcer begins reading from a seemingly indecisurable script.

Viking North at Sierra, Southwestily, 527, occasionally Gail 8,

Rain or Shower's, Moderate or Good, occasionally poor.

This cryptic mesmerizing mumbo jumbo is the shipping forecast, the UK's Notical Weather Report.

Time, Dogger, Fisher, Southwest 405, increasing 5 or 6, occasionally 7 later,

occasional rain, moderate or good. And that voice you hear reading it is Peter Jefferson.

Yes, hello, I'm Peter Jefferson. I used to work for the BBC for about a lifetime and a half.

And one of the things I did there was to read the shipping forecast.

Peter started working for the BBC back in the 60s. He was an announcer which meant he read the news.

But one day they handed him a very different sort of script. It was the shipping forecast.

They'll guide her, it's since I was a small boy. I never thought that one day I'd be reading it.

And when I was faced with it and nobody told me how I should go about reading it, I was somewhat nervous.

So he just read the script, word for word. Originally I was reading what's there and wondering to

myself what the hell is all this about. But he got through it. And from that day forward,

Peter Jefferson's job, which he would keep for 40 years until he made a faithful mistake,

was to read one of the oldest, strangest, most beloved weather forecasts in the world.

It's been going for, you know, 100 years now. And it's become a really part of the culture here.

And it's a much loved institution. People regard it as poetry.

This is Charlie Connolly. My name's Charlie Connolly. I'm a writer and occasional radio presenter.

...