‘SPLISH, splash, splosh, little April showers, do, do, do, do’ etc.

The song comes about halfway through the film Bambi, and, together with the baby deer’s mam getting it in the neck from a hunter (Robert De Niro perhaps, in some strange alternative crossover reality), it’s probably the most memorable part.

The animated droplets falling from the sky to the evocative notes of an oboe, and the cleverly reflected rivulets coursing between the fluffy paws and hooves of endearing woodland creatures, are great to watch from a nice, warm cinema. But do human beings really like rain?

Being a non-sporty type, I think it’s the best part of Wimbledon. When those nippers in green and purple scurry to cover the pitch (field? rink? arena?) with the tarpaulin, I’m cheering.

And the only downer is not if Cliff Richard is in the audience, but, rather, if some fool gives him a microphone.

Next time I hope it’s Ozzy Osbourne who’s watching on the centre court – court, that’s what it’s called – so he can lead the crowd in a rousing rendition of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Or Captain Beefheart taking the sodden spectators through an a cappella singalong of Lick My Decals Off, Baby.

Likewise cricket.

I think the weathervane of Old Father Time at Lord’s dripping against angry grey clouds is more poetic and aesthetic than several hours of blokes running around in white outfits with red crotch stains.

And there’s nothing better than seeing the so-called Barmy Army sitting miserable and shivering under polythene, stopped from their singing and carousing and trying to act like football and rugby fans.

At least if it rains, rugby and football players still play their chosen sport. Actually, it might be a historic fact that rugby league in Keighley, West Yorkshire, was played only once in dry weather and that was a Sunday in 1976 when the drought was on.

Though maybe not.

In fact, I remember being sent out in bone-chilling northern monsoons to play rugby countless times when I were a lad.

In our thick, warm, freshly laundered and ironed, 100%-cotton shorts and reversible shirts, it took just seconds on the waterlogged playing fields to get completely blathered in thick, dark, Pennine mud.

And after the lesson, as we trudged back to lukewarm showers three stone heavier than when we’d started, did we envy our sports teacher wrapped in his tracksuit, waterproofs and wellies? Did we heckers like. Rain maketh the man.

In fact, if you got soaked on the Monday, you could legitimately come into school wearing your Wranglers on the Tuesday instead of your grey uniform trousers.

In those days, not every home had a tumble dryer so you could always argue: ‘But sir, me mam ant dried us school trousers yet so I ’ad to come in in us jeans.’

And a kid in jeans was always a cool thing when you were 12.

Songs about rain were always cool, too.

The Rain Song by Led Zep. Raindogs by Tom Waits.

The double divvy day of Credence Clearwater Revival’s Have You Ever Seen The Rain? and Who’ll Stop The Rain? Those old 50s and 60s songs like It’s Raining and Just Walkin’ In the Rain in my dad’s singles collection.

My fave was Whitesnake’s Don’t Break My Heart Again when lead singer Dave Coverdale sang: ‘Even in a summer love, a little bit of rain must fall.’

‘How true,’ I thought, reflecting on my vast experience of seasonal romance. ‘How true. Dave, you’re a poet.’

Then, when I discovered real poetry in the school library, Dave was flushed down the storm drain.

Stuff like e.e. Cummings’s ‘and the world was puddle-wonderful’ and ‘no one, not even the rain has such small hands’.

‘What did that mean?’ I wondered. I didn’t care, it had rain in it and at 14, rain was even cooler than wearing jeans to school.

I’d wander for hours in it. I’d see parts of town that I’d never visited before. There was a romantic aspect, an epic feel to it. Especially if I’d walked on the local steam railway track.

It was only four miles long, but with my overcoat collar turned up against a torrential downpour and Air Wares squelching, a nicked B&H from my dad and a nip or two of QC sherry from the drinks cabinet in a hip flask, I was Hemingway’s Nick Adams, Kerouac’s Sal Paradise, Fante’s Arturo Bandini.

That was until I got home and got a rollicking from my mum.

‘Why didn’t you get the bus, y’daft sod?’

But that said, what more heart-warming feeling was there when you were a kid at school when it was too miserable to go outside and you had a wet playtime?

‘Wet playtime,’ the teacher would say and out would come the sacred comic box. Never brought out at any other time except when outside was under water.

Smash, Victor and Valiant for the boys, Tammy, Bunty and Misty for the girls and Whoopee, Sparky and Beezer for everyone.

Then a wet playtime would turn into a wet dinnertime.

Liver with bacon bits and mash for firsts, chocolate blancmange for afters. Everyone’s wet hair and clothes steaming in the dining hall as the school furnace went into overdrive and the radiators would brand you if you leant on them.

Then, at the end of the day, just when you had dried out, it was back home again in the pouring rain and sogged again.

Even at the age of 42, I’m still mystified and slightly awestruck by rain. But it’s not as romantic as it used to be. Wet feet and shivering children aren’t as much of a laugh as they used to be.

One thing I still don’t know: how do weatherfolk work out the rainfall? Do they still have rain gauges on roofs and attached to weather balloons? Did they ever? Is it all done by computers and satellites nowadays?

I think maybe that I could help.

The prematurely bought and hastily blown-up paddling pool in our back garden is now two feet deeper than when I filled it up on Sunday, when the sun promised the start of summer.

Forget all I’ve said. God, I hate the rain.