Hi all, thanks for your responses.
Unfortunately I was only able to check the first one before I set off on my trip. Had I read all your accounts I probably would have felt more confident to try one last wild camp on Saturday night (I did camp out the previous two nights), but the fact that on Saturday:
-the sky looked like storm
-MWIS was still forecasting lightning
-even the met office had a lightning alert (which it hadn't the previous nights)
All that made me drop down to the valley and spend the night in a hostel. I don't regret it though as even though it turned out to be a rather pleasant evening/night with no signs of storms, I probably would have felt very uncomfortable fearing the thunder and not have enjoyed myself at all, which defeats the point of camping!
In any case, I was surprised with how "easy" people on the fells were about the chances of storm. On Saturday morning, on my way up Helvellyn, I managed to get 4G reception and checked the mountain weather app, which clearly forecast lightning specifically on Helvellyn. On the ground, it certainly looked like it. In spite of it, there were loads of people around, and going up Dollywaggon Pike towards Helvellyn, a few people I talked to about the chances of storm were "well, that's where we're going anyway, we'll drop down if it gets worse", but to me that still felt like unnecessary risk. I mean, if it's forecast to be lightning, and the sky looks like a storm is approaching, and it's actually starting to rain ... well, why bother going up an exposed ridge? I turned back and improvised another route somewhere else which wasn't exposed and closer to the valley, but it did amazed me and made me wonder who was being more extreme in their attitude, whether myself with my extreme precaution, or the rest with their extreme lack of...
Anyway, having experienced how the storm never happened in spite of all the forecasts, I might be braver next time.
Cheers