Long before the Met Office came up with complicated charts and Craig Rich told us about the effect of depressed low Gs, people were looking to the skies and to the nature all around them to predict the coming weather.

With the weather gods seemingly intent on confusing us, how will we know whether it's sunglasses or souwesters that we need over the easter break? Is there any truth in the old weather sayings that our grandparents used to go by, or are we better off watching the TV forecasts?

As we stepped out into Fore street to find out what the people of Liskeard think, the skies blackened and we were soon being pelted with lumps of ice, prompting us to evoke various weather expressions, including a new one; 'If you do weather for Have your Say, hail will drive the folk away.'

Our second attempt was more fruitful and it was clear that locals still give credence to traditional sayings. Joan Dredge, who grew up at Coombe Junction, said that 'Rain before seven, fine before eleven' had always seemed to work for her, adding: 'often the sayings are just as reliable as the weather forecasts.'

In agreement with this was retired farmer Wallace Facey, who remembered a rather green young chap from the Met office who came down to stay with the Young Farmers and was made to eat his words when his television forecast turned out to be wrong. Mr Facey said that some farmers today still rely on the moon and 'which quarter the wind is in' to predict the weather, but that many more sayings were used in the past to guide planting, such as 'Sixth of May is mangols day.' He also had a few of his own techniques, saying; 'If there's stripey cloud in the sky, it's a sign that the fine spell is coming to an end, and there'll be wet weather in the next day or two.'

Appalling rain

However Lynda Barnett of Henwood was not convinced, having no time for the well-known 'red sky at night' expression. Said Mrs Barnett: 'I tried that one on holiday last christmas in the Dominican Republic. There was a red sky one night but the next day we had appalling rain - it was dreadful !' Similarly Mrs Pemberton of Liskeard told us that 'red sky in the morning' might well be the shepherd's warning, but that 'red sky at night means his hut is alight.'

Mrs M Baynham from Gloucestershire said: "Where I used to live we used to say if you could hear the whistling train, that meant rain.' Desmond Gregory of Bude remembered another rain-related saying: 'If there's rain on St Swithen's day, there'll be forty foul days and nights ahead', which he first heard in church as a tiny boy.

David Dredge voiced a common sentiment when he said: 'When we were children we had sunnier summers and very cold winters with a lot more snow and ice - all the weeds and insects died off.' Almost everyone agreed that the changing seasons have become more difficult to predict over the years. Even so, it seems that those foreseeing the weather in times past were as keen to hedge their bets as the modern forecasters - 'mackerel sky, not long wet, not long dry' sounds a bit like the old fashioned equivalent of the forecast for this weekend; 'Cold and windy with sunny intervals possible, some showers could turn to snow'!