THERE was light grey. There was dark grey. There was shiny grey. There was mid grey. There was thin wispy grey. There was heavy rainy grey.

And then, just for a smidgeon of a second, there was a hole in the greys and the celestial spectacular of the century so far revealed in all its full glory.

At 9.32am, the grey clouds on my hillside outside Darlington parted just enough so that the naked eye could see a sliver of the sun, a bright rind around its edge, as the black coin of the moon slid across it.

It was only a fragment of a view, but it was quite wonderful, quite tingle-inducing, quite awe-inspiring, and utterly exasperating because almost as soon as it was there, it was gone, like a cosmic peep show.

I had climbed the Monkend Hills outside Croft-on-Tees because for the total eclipse of 1927, 10,000 watchers had lined the top of this rise which stretches upriver to Stapleton. The Pennines were at their backs, the outlines of the Cleveland Hills were in front of them, and the church steeples and clocktowers of Darlington were spread out beneath them.

And they were greeted by the same greyness.

Yesterday on the hill, my daughter and I were alone: just me tweeting and a woodful of birds chirping.

I had come completely prepared for eclipse-watching, armed with a colander which I intended to use as a pin-hole camera. However, as 9.34am – the minute in which the eclipse was due to be at its maximum 90 per cent – approached, it seemed the colander would be more useful as a rain hat, even with all its holes, as the bank of cloud deepened and darkened overhead.

Even if the skies offered us nothing, we could, though, make out that the light was going out. The fields around the River Tees were slowly filling with a subdued, silvery light, draining the colour from the landscape. If I were driving a car, I thought, I would be tempted to turn on my sidelights – but it wasn’t dark enough for headlights and it wasn’t dusk enough to silence the birds.

The air was strangely still – the whisper of wind had disappeared – but a robin in a treetop was still merrily pouring forth its song.

It seemed that we were to share the disappointment of the 1927 watchers who saw nothing. Indeed, I feared that for me, it would be a repeat of the 1999 total eclipse when I stood on the same spot, and saw nothing.

But then, out of the grey, there was a sudden lightening in the sky, and for a magic moment, there was a glorious glimpse. It was only a moment – not long enough to even raise a camera – because as quickly as they had revealed it, the clouds closed over it, and the sky once more faded to grey.

Ten minutes later, and we got another glimpse, a different glimpse because the moon had slid across the face of the sun. The sliver now was bigger, the rind was in a different portion and the sun looked like a crescent moon.

We watched, transfixed, until the heavens covered up the celestial sight.

It was 9.45am, and already though the colour was returning to the landscape. Gone was the dusk-like silvery hue, the wind was once more whispering in the trees and the sky was again a symphony of grey.

I will have to wait until August 12, 2026, to see anything like that again.