Meet the Letham Woman Who Has Never Looked at a Weather Forecast in Her Life and Judges Everything by How Her Washing Behaves

By our Local Characters Correspondent

Jean Kerr, 77, has lived in the same house in Letham since 1971 and has never once checked a weather forecast. She doesn’t need to. She has a washing line.

“You hang out a tea towel first thing,” she explained. “If it flaps, it’s windy. If it hangs straight down, it’s calm. If it’s stiff by ten o’clock, it’s frosty. If it’s wet by eleven, it’s raining. If it’s gone, it’s a gale, and you go and look in Mrs Paterson’s garden.”

This morning, Jean’s tea towel was hanging perfectly still, which she said meant “a calm, sunny day with a bit of a nip”. The Met Office said much the same thing, but took longer to say it.

Jean’s husband, Bill, once bought her a weather station for her birthday. “It was in 1994,” she said. “It’s still in the box. It’s a lovely box. I keep my good scissors in it.”

Neighbours say Jean’s forecasts are “terrifyingly accurate”. One said she had planned her daughter’s wedding around a forecast from Jean’s pillowcases. “The Met Office said rain,” she said. “Jean said, ‘My pillowcases are dry, it’ll be fine.’ It was fine. It was the sunniest day of the year.”

Jean says she has no plans to retire. “When I’m gone,” she said, “my daughter can have the line. I’ve taught her everything. She still gets the duvet covers wrong, but she’ll learn,” she said.

The real story: Perth forecast (Met Office)