By Philip Eden

A few days ago I had a telephone call from a journalist at a radio station in London, and she asked me the question that, come December, weather people dread. "When was the last time we had a white Christmas?" The first cuckoo, I thought.

For some reason my usual amiability faltered. "Who is 'we'?" I asked. "What do you mean by a white Christmas? Where are you talking about? And why do you want to know?"

Nonplussed, she paused, then she tried again. "But surely, it's ever such a long time since we had a white Christmas. I can't remember the last time. It must be ages."

"Yes," I said. "It's a very long time ... in fact it's very nearly 12 months. It last snowed at Christmas way back in 2001. I don't suppose you can remember that far back."Somehow sensing she would rather the conversation ended there, I wasn't going to let her go so easily. But I was mildly surprised how patiently she listened to my little diatribe about how the concept of a white Christmas had been perverted by the bookies, how the statistics are all geared to their requirements, and how they won't pay out unless flakes of snow are reported falling on the roof of the London Weather Centre. Snow on the ground simply does not count. Britain could be buried under two feet of snow on Christmas morning, but if it all fell on Christmas Eve with nothing falling on Christmas Day itself, the bookmakers would hang on to their dosh.

It was at this point I heard the click of the journalist's phone being hung up. I don't know about her, but I felt a lot better.

Last year's Christmas was a non-event for most of us although snow showers fell frequently during the day in the north and east of Scotland, and snow lay two inches deep at Glenlivet in Morayshire. A few snow showers penetrated as far as the north Welsh hills and sleet was observed for a short time over the Cotwolds and Chilterns. A very rough calculation indicated that roughly one million people saw at least a few snowflakes on Christmas Day 2001, which means that 59 million didn't.

Snow or sleet falls on December 25 in London during one year in twelve, on average. Strangely, given the warming trend in our climate, there have been four examples in the last decade although none of them produced a significant snow-cover. In northern Britain Christmas 1995 was very white with deep snow in northern and eastern Scotland and northeast England.

For the rest of us, we have to go back to 1981 for the last traditional white Christmas. Most of the UK was snow-covered that day - in some areas it was a foot deep - thanks to repeated heavy falls during the preceding three weeks. But 1981 does not appear in the bookmakers' list of white Christmases because the day itself was simply sunny and cold.

(c) Philip Eden