On August 11 next year, a swathe of ocean and continent from Cornwall to India will be plunged into darkness as day turns into night. Thousands of Britons are expected to flock south to witness this amazing light show - a rare total eclipse. Here in West Yorkshire around 85 per cent of the sun will be obscured as the moon crosses in front of it. Few people witnessing the eclipse next year will have been around to see the last solar blackout in June 1927. It was clearly visible in the north of England, and Bradford-born Veronica Madams, 86 - who now, by a quirk of fate, lives in Cornwall - remembers it well. Helen Mead reports

FEW SIGHTS leave us lost for words. Usually, when confronted by an amazing spectacle - the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, a thrilling electrical storm - we manage a few gasps, a few expletives.

But to find yourself so awestruck that you can barely draw breath...it would have to be something really out-of-this-world.

A total eclipse is one such spectacle. Total eclipses - where the moon passes in front of the sun, totally blocking it out - are very, very rare. On average any single point on the Earth's surface will only experience one every 360 years.

In Britain, the last solar blackout happened in 1927, when pensioner Veronica Madams was a 15-year-old schoolgirl in Bradford.

A pupil at St Joseph's College, Manningham, she clearly recalls the day she was taken with a group of fifth-formers to see the eclipse from what was thought to be the best vantage point -Giggleswick in the Yorkshire Dales.

"We had to get up really early to catch the 4am train. It was dark, and I walked from our house in Heaton to the station. It was still dark when we got there and we didn't see much of the village. It was cold and we were wearing our summer uniform.

"We sat on a hillside but no-one had told us to bring a rug or anything like that so it was not only cold it was very uncomfortable."

The teenagers were given special glasses made from cardboard to protect their eyes while they watched the moon scythe across the sun.

Says Veronica: "At about 7am it was light and we were all sitting chattering. It was not until we saw part of the moon's shadow pass across the sun that we settled down. As the moon passed across it got darker and colder and we could see clearly what was going to happen."

The whole process took about four hours and despite a cloudy start to the day, when the eclipse was complete, the sky was clear. Veronica - who was then called Veronica Duke-Weiz - said the atmosphere was eerie, but no-one was afraid. She said the birds and animals clearly did not know what to make of it.

There were other groups of schoolchildren nearby, recalls Veronica. "We were all transfixed. When the shadow was complete it was the most wonderful sight - the sun did not look like a neat, round ball, but like a blazing fire. The rays were all flaming around the outside of the ball, shooting out from the edge - the sun was a mass of fire, it really was fantastic. We were awestruck. No-one spoke, it was too amazing a sight. It lasted for two to three minutes before the sun started to slowly move off."

Giggleswick stood in the very centre of the shadow and it was for this reason that the Astronomer Royal, Sir Frank Dyson, chose it for his eclipse headquarters. Afterwards, he described the astronomical event as "the perfect eclipse."

Veronica was lucky enough to meet Sir Frank and the schoolgirls had their photograph taken with him.

Newspapers of the day reported the "biggest invasion" ever of visitors to the Yorkshire Dales, with more than a million people descending upon the area for the event. But Veronica does not recall seeing vast crowds. "If they were there, they must have been watching from another place because where we sat there were just a few groups of schoolchildren."

Veronica, who worked as a teacher in Bradford before leaving the city in 1940 for a career as an actress and singer, now finds herself once again at the hub of an eclipse.

The pensioner lives in Bodmin, Cornwall, and is looking forward to watching next year's solar spectacle with her daughter, Edwina.

"She has heard so much about the last eclipse. Recently a lot of people have asked me about it, but I haven't yet met anyone who saw it, although I had a letter from an elderly lady who lived near Manchester and had seen it."

l Did you see the last eclipse? Write and tell us at Just Relax! Telegraph & Argus, Hall Ings, Bradford, BD1 1JR.

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