"I have been doing this virtually since starting in 1961," he said.

His family were originally from Pembrokeshire, but he developed an interest in meteorology with childhood friend Gordon Ledgerwood while they were at school together in London.

"I saw the weather station he'd developed. I lived in the country and he lived in the town and there was a little bit of competition between us over our weather records," he said.

But that competitive edge did nothing to harm their friendship and when John went to collect his MBE for services to the Met Office, he took his old friend Gordon with him.

"This all started as a little hobby and turned into a job. I have been very, very, lucky," he said.

He has been recording daily at his climate station at Penmaen on the stroke of 0900 gmt.

"That does mean that you are very restricted," John conceded. "I've never really had a long holiday and I've never been abroad, so hopefully that is for the future."

And although John has lived in different parts of the UK, his heart has always been in this area.

"I fell in love with Swansea when I was a child. I used to think what a lovely place it was - little did I know that one day I would get a property and live on Gower," he said.

"The weather here is so much more interesting. When it rains, it really rains and when it blows, it really blows."

He also has an interest in classic cars, historic buildings and gardens - so there will no shortage of diversions.

But now that he's free to travel, he's hoping to see how the Canaletto paintings that he saw at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea measure up to the real Rome and Venice. And he also fancies a trip to see the Terracotta Army in China.

So will he be an entirely "weather-free" zone? Not a bit of it. "Now I want to analyse all this information that I've collected over the years - that's what I hope to do."