The winters of 1947 and 1963

[PMG]

Originally Posted by ChrisJB

An inch of snow?? Aye, we've certainly gone soft alright! I want some mega drifts!

Regards, Chris

Be careful what you wish for Chris - tho it looks like they're getting it and our share in Northumberland


Pauline

[AngeTheHippy]

Oh yes, I remember '63. I was 9 yrs old at the time. We lived on a council estate in west London with a green out front. I disinctly remember just being able to see over the top of the snow, it lasted for AGES, my Dad used to say it started Boxing day and carried on and off until March. No one had double glazing in those days, the frost was on the INSIDE of the bedroom windows, making wonderful patterns on the panes. The snow easily blew under the back door, I can see it now, piled up. My Mother put a blanket against it to stop it's progress. The water pipes burst upstairs, a local bloke, handymay type, came out during the evening and helped me Dad stop the leaks. She still lives there...

Ange
x

[ChrisJB]

Originally Posted by PMG

Be careful what you wish for Chris - tho it looks like they're getting it and our share in Northumberland


Pauline

We had a nice little taste of winter here during the night last Friday and it carried on into Saturday morn. Nice windy blasts of snow we had and I sat by the window watching the show! Alas by Saturday dinner time the sun was shining and a thaw had set in.

Regards, Chris

[Amiguru]

As I said earlier in this thread, I remember the 1947 winter quite well but for those who never witnessed it, here are two clips from 'North East Tonight' which show just how it was:

YouTube - Winter 1947 - Newcastle (Part 1)

YouTube - Winter 1947 - Newcastle (Part 2)

Funny how nowadays it only takes about a centimetre of snow to cause havoc on the roads and rail!

[foxy mars]

Although, I can just say remember 1963. I was seven years old and remember the deep snow, I think we had to go to school in it. Me mum always 1947 was the real winter and said 1963 was the coldest she known it. No central heating then, she would alway say.

Although, I can remember winters 1976 and 1977. I was working at ICI North Tees, rigging up them 21' X 4" pipe-lines, could'nt feel hands or feet. Try working outdoors next to the River Tees in the snow, although them icicles hanging from the Jetties were a great sight to see. Some were least 15' x 3" that happens when the snow from the Jetties were thawing and re-freezing over the weeks.

[nytecam]

Originally Posted by Interpreter

I was there for both of them.

Me too - the first was two years before I left school [at 15] and 2 years after the end of WWII so few resources. My school closed without fuel for the boilers at Hook Surrey. Burst watertanks in lofts were common.

In '63 I lived and worked in Dorking Surrey - it was so cold all four of us [my wife and two preschool children] wore overcoats INDOORS - only one track of road was cleared of snow outside our house and I parked my 'Maigret' Citroen on the snowy grass verge. A vinditive councillor got the police to give everyone in town a parking ticket for so digressing - funny how you remember 'little things'.

As has been said - we has seasons then but good and carefree times in a caring society

[The Woodman]

Can't resist this one. Like Ange The Hippie, I was nine in '63 and spent much time at my Grandparents in a small Gloucestershire village. My Grandfather was a gardener at the big house in the village (the one with the large 22 acre village green) and I remember helping him and the estate staff shovel snow off the roof - a real treat to be allowed onto the roof! The Italianate garden pond froze solid and when it thawed I helped get all the dead rudd, perch and eels out.

He used to send me birds that had died from starvation in cardboard boxes via the post and I remember being fascinated with the long tongues of a green woodpecker and tree creeper.

[LynM]

I've only just seen this thread and have read it through with fascination. I was only a baby in '47 so I have norecall of that at all and, oddly enough, I don't remember my parents talking about it even when '62/'63 came about.

I do remember that winter though! I was living with my parents in the middle of the Chilterns in Bucks and my father was a Station Master on the railways. On Boxing Day he was called in to the station to check that everything was OK with the lines and the signalling. He was walking up to one of the two signal boxes, slipped on the snowy/icy sleepers and broke his leg in two places. He spent the entire winter at home with his leg in plaster! He got it taken off just about when the thaw really set in.

I certainly recall the insides of windows having beautiful icy patterns on every morning. The house we lived in had a small fireplace in all the bedrooms as well as the downstairs rooms. It was about the only time that we used them.

The other spell of VERY cold weather that I remember was in December 1981 when the temperature dropped to -14C (still in Bucks btw!) and froze the diesel in the car!

[ChrisJB]

Originally Posted by LynM

The other spell of VERY cold weather that I remember was in December 1981 when the temperature dropped to -14C (still in Bucks btw!) and froze the diesel in the car!

The worst I recall was 1979, but I remember Dec' 1981 too. We had weeks of hard packed frozen snow on the ground.

Regards, Chris

[tcvarlh]

Born in '57 which meant I had, like thousands of other kids, to walk the almost four mile to school in '63 in short trousers, long socks, lace-up leather shoes, a stupid cap and a mac. The girls had a longer skirt to wear which stopped blue knees at least.
Anybody else think the kids today have a much nicer time?
Actually, with the cold wind and snow, any lad that walked to school that winter and has kids of his own is a success story!