By Isle of Wight Observer
This entry from the Isle of Wight Observer published on December 7th, 1889 tell how readers of “The Standard” – the London newspaper – were advised to try spending the winter in warmer parts of the UK, such as the Isle of Wight. They described it as a “via media” or middle way between staying at home and travelling abroad. Given recent temperatures we’re not so sure about the advice that it will not be too cold!
The Standard, in a readable leader on the weather and where to spend the winter, reminds its readers that abroad if it is more sunny than in England there is less comfort, and that foreign manners and customs have to be conformed to. But, it adds, “There is a via media, between going abroad and staying absolutely at home. Do not South Devon, South Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Wight, and other places, afford refuge from the sleet, and cutting winds, and searching frosts that visit the greater part of it? Why are not delicate or luxurious persons content to seek out the warmest and most sheltered places in Great Britain, and thus pass the winter months in their native land? There is a good deal to be said for this alternative. These spots are more accessible, are sooner reached, and are quitted with greater ease. If you take your family to Sicily for the winter, and do not happen to like it, you can hardly come away, having gone so far, till spring once again reappears in the north. Having travelled as far as Rome or Bordighera, and taken a house there, most men would feel that they must hold on to the end of the prescribed or projected term. But when the journey is only a matter of a few hours, and the railway fare a matter of only a pound or two, the experiment is not so irrevocable. Nor can it be doubted that there are places in these Islands whose winter temperature is far more equable than that of any city in Italy, or of any watering-place along the Riviera. The heat is not so great, but neither is the cold, and English comforts are within reach, in the shape of doctors, daily papers, books, and friends.