The Eclipse: Quotes of the Day

"The next one in Britain is in 2090, and I will be retired by then." Howard Ilett, 81, an astronomer who also saw the 1927 eclipse.

"The temperature dropped suddenly and the light dropped, and there were strange atmospheric effects too, a strange kind of breeze I have not felt before." TV astronomer Patrick Moore.

"I was expecting something like the beginning of the end of the Earth. Instead, it was like someone switched the lights out and held a watering can over your head." Ashley Thomas, 46, an engineer.

"People who travelled a long way here have been seriously chuffed. What happened at 11.11am was sheer luck." Dr David Hughes, head of astronomy at Sheffield University.

"The world cannot take any more of the abuse that it has suffered at the hands of mankind. The eclipse represents its renewal ahead of the millennium." Shay Morgan, an occultist, whose coven met in west Cornwall.

"It was a nice gathering really. We had some stew in the cauldron and a glass of wine. It was quite civilised." Ms Morgan after the eclipse.