When a young fellow I liked storms and liked being in them, ubber cool until I finally got too involved and ended up being flattened by a lightning bolt which fortunately ( for me ) directly hit a young cow about 10 metres away killing the poor cow and two others. Quite a scary moment looking up and seeing nothing but blue light ( am I dead I did wonder ), downside was a damaged eardrum and hair that stuck up on end for over 2 hours rather like the cartoon character who puts his finger in the electricity socket. Saved by the rubber "Wellie" boots I was wearing it was a very close call.

A number of years later I was at sea bringing a boat back from Ireland and a very large electrical storm lay directly in front of us ( it eventually closed all the airways into Heathrow and Gatwick ), the smell of the electrically charged Ozone immediately rekindled memories of that earlier event. Sure enough within a few minutes the rigging on the boat started " humming " with static and lightning bolts seemed to be falling all around us. We took the the only decision available and diverted into a port and tied up against a much larger yacht, the thereoy being they have a taller mast.

Another nearly was I had been flying a glider near Dunstable and got caught on the edge of a storm, a fellow pilot from Dunstable took a direct hit. It totally super heated the whole fuselage and the glider was written off as it was a GRP glider and in their words "changed the whole feeling of the aircraft". The bolt hit the rear fin and emerged out through the front of the nose.