By Wendy Brown

Last updated 11:34, Wednesday, 07 May 2008

Mad dogs and Englishmen, wrote Noel Coward many years ago. Well actually, I think our dogs are fairly normal, whereas the people are definitely quite mad.

You only have to look around you on one of our typically cold, wet and windy days to realise this.

I have seen pensioners enjoying a tea dance on the end of a northern seaside pier in a lashing gale. The ladies sported rain hats (and silver shoes) and the gentlemen held umbrellas.

I regularly see families braving atrocious weather to hold a picnic, often beside a busy road or in a car park. And families huddled behind a wind shield on a rain-swept beach, swaddled in winter gear and opening thermos flasks of soup and coffee.

Then there’s our new, much-heralded continental style cafe culture. How often have you seen people shivering in overcoats, hats, gloves and mufflers, sipping coffee at a pavement cafe? There’s no sun, of course, but what the heck – we’re British! We don’t mind.

We are known as a nation of eccentrics. Some of us think nothing of leaping into the freezing Serpentine or North Sea, we set up a restaurant on top of Skiddaw (nice one!) – and remember that brave individual who walked from Land’s End to John O’ Groats naked? Now, he could surely have done with some warmer weather.

Most of the latter are undertaken for charity and I so admire all the brave people involved. However, I can’t help also harbouring a sneaking admiration for all the people who epitomise that British war-time spirit – “We will survive.”

I vote we make the most of our eccentricity. Let’s applaud all the brave souls who defy the gloom – and the weather – and set out with determination to make the best of things. The next time I see a family clad in cagoules, sitting on a soggy blanket in the middle of a wet field handing round the sandwiches and pork pies, I’ll take my hat off to them.