The Northern Echo's deputy editor Chris Lloyd is on Monkend Hills outside Croft to witness the solar eclipse

Here on the Monkend Hills outside Croft on Tees, it is unremittingly grey. Not just grey clouds above but a grey mist is rising from the fields below. On these hills for the total eclipse of 1927, there were 10,000 watchers. Today, there's just me tweeting and a woodful of birds chirping. 

I have come completely prepared for the celestial spectacular of the century so far, with a colander to act as a pin hole calendar. I fear, as 9.34am and the minute of maximum eclipse approaches, I will need it as a rain hat because the cloud over head is growing thicker by the second. Even the slight smear of sunlight has been blotted out. 

The bank of cloud is now deepening overhead but, with 10 minutes to go, it is definitely getting darker. The vale in front of me is filling with a strange almost silvery subdued light, and if I were in a car, I be thinking of putting on my sidelights. The air is now completely still - the whisper of wind has disappeared - but the birds are still merrily pouring forth their song. 

Suddenly, at 9.32, for a smidgeon of a second, the cloud thinned to reveal a thin rind of sun. It was a magical moment, the moon visible as a black coin with a bright halo of sun around its lower portion. My body tingles with excitement, but before I can even raise my camera, the clouds roll back, and it has faded to grey once more. 

At 9.42am, the clouds part enough to reveal another magical moment as the moon slips in front of the sun. It's only a fragment of a view, but it is quite wonderful, quite awe inspiring and utterly exasperating that after a glimpse, the view is gone.

Already though the colour is returning to the landscape. Gone is the dusk like silvery hue and the wind is once more whispering in the trees. I shall have to wait until 2026 to see anything like that again.