When that happens, the effect could be to clean up a chain of production currently shrouded in secrecy and lead to vastly improved practices that could mean people who currently wouldn’t be seen dead wearing a fox fur, decide that, just as they eat meat from a pig that’s been humanely reared and killed, so will they wear a fox that’s had similarly humane treatment in its life and in its death. Sounds amazing? Dr Joan Farrer, who researches sustainability in fashion at the Royal College of Art School of Fashion and Textiles, feels that this extraordinary prospect is perfectly possible. There is, it seems, a middle way, and behind the scenes in the fashion industry, people are plugging away to spearhead a revolution that could see fur-wearing become not just an ethical way to dress, but – whisper it if you dare – the most ethical clothes option of all. According to the British Fur Trade Association, sales of fur and fur-trimmed items were up by a third last year on the previous year, and it’s now all systems go for what they call “a strong, positive, upward trend”. But as the designers drool over their new-found love of fashion’s most sensuous fabric, the action is hotting up among the animal rights protesters.

Last week’s fashion week in Milan saw activist group Peta storm the Dolce & Gabbana show in outrage at the design house’s use of astrakhan, the fur of newborn lambs. So are we set for another round of angry, paint-filled protests, with the hard line drawn once again between, on the one hand, those who simply can’t live without their gorgeous furs, and those who can’t stomach the idea of anyone wearing the skin of an animal that has been killed to produce it? Not necessarily. “They’re beautiful coats,” said my mother, as we consigned them to the wardrobe “But they’re utterly worthless. No one will ever wear fur again.”
Twenty years on, and how wrong we were. Fur is back, and what’s extraordinary is that it never went away.

Not only is it the oldest fabric in the fashion handbook, it’s also probably the most ancient trading item of all time. So what if it disappeared from view in the aftermath of that David Bailey TV ad (the one that told you it took a dozen dumb animals to make a fur coat, and just one to wear it)? Something with so strong a hold over generation after generation of wearers; something with so powerful a subtext that spelt glamour and luxury and style; something with so strong a following in other parts of our global village, whatever the negativity in the UK; something with a story that strong was never going to fade away for ever. At precisely the moment I came into them, in the mid-1980s, these coats were fashion suicide: women were getting paint thrown over them in the street if they displayed even a few tufts of the stuff. But, much though I love the link they give with my deceased granny, I’ve never worn her coats. The reason is simple: they’re fur – one a long, sensuous, grey-brown mink; the other a striking leopard shortie. They’re my granny’s best coats: she sparkled in them in her heyday, in the Thirties, and the amazing thing is that they’re in just as good nick now as they were when she slipped them on over silk dresses and headed off to party.

Two of my most prized possessions sit gathering dust in the back of my wardrobe. Nor should people try looking through sunglasses – they are simply not strong enough to give protection. The best way of observing the eclipse is to use binoculars or a small telescope to project the sun’s image on to a white card.. By about 10am, the sun will look as if a large bite has been taken out of it, with about 60 per cent of its surface covered by the moon; the maximum coverage will last about four minutes. Then the moon will begin to slip away on the eastern, or left-hand side, and the eclipse will be over by about 11.15.It will be visible as a partial eclipse across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and India, but along a narrow track through Spain, North and East Africa and into the Indian Ocean there will be a so-called anular eclipse, when the whole of the moon’s disc is visible against the sun, but it is not quite big enough to blot it out completely, leaving a bright ring around the outside.It cannot be stressed strongly enough that no one should look directly at the sun, especially with binoculars or telescopes – blindness can result. But the moon will definitely be visible crossing the disc of the sun – as long as you take precautions about looking at it, and do not use the naked eye, or standard optical aids such as binoculars and telescopes.
The eclipse will begin about 8.50am, with the moon approaching the sun from the west, or the right-hand side. There will not be the dramatic darkening that accompanied the last total eclipse in 1999, which was witnessed spectacularly in Cornwall.