The Big Freeze
Jan. 19th, 2013 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dormouse1953Just been watching a BBC documentary about the big freeze of 1963. Basically this was a repeat of a Tonight programme special shown towards the end of the freeze, fronted by Cliff Michelmore , Derek Hart and Kenneth Alsop (and with designer Ridley Scott and director Anthony Jay).
I am old enough to remember the big freeze. I was nine and a half at the time. But I was young enough then not to realise that that year was anything special. The family had moved to the north-east five years earlier, which is about when my earliest memories start. It had snowed most winters - probably every winter - since we moved, and when you're nine, a week seems as long as a month anyway. So I didn't know it was unusual for the snow to be on the ground for over two months.
And, at that age, I had none of the problems that I have with cold now. I enjoyed playing in the snow, making snowmen and snow castles. (Take a seaside plastic bucket, fill it with snow and turn it over.) I remember about ten years ago my father telling me that he'd found a photograph of me and my sisters playing in the snow probably that year. I was wearing short trousers (and I guess my sisters were wearing dresses or skirts). No nine-year old boy would wear long trousers back then. (I never found that photograph when we were clearing out my father's house. I don't know if any of my siblings have it.)
I don't even remember having problems with school. My primary school was literally at the bottom of the street, so I had no trouble getting there - one of the teachers lived next door to us - and I don't think the school was ever closed.
I do remember that my brother was less than a year old then and that my mother used to wash his nappies, put them out on the line to dry and when she brought them in, they were as stiff as boards and she had to stand them in front of the fire to thaw. (The BBC programme mentioned a shortage of disposable nappies, but we had the old washable kind.)
And I remember the disruption to sport but only peripherally. The pools panel was introduced, and my parents were keen pools players - at one time my father had a part-time job collecting for Littlewoods. Saturday afternoon's Grandstand on the BBC was replaced by old films.
I do remember clearing the snow off the pavement outside our house and realising that it was coming up in big frozen slabs on which the lines in the paving stones were imprinted.
And I remember a few months later, the weather had become warm enough that the teacher had decided to take us outside for a lesson in the sunshine. I was sitting on the grass and looking at it and remembering how this had all been deep under snow.
I am old enough to remember the big freeze. I was nine and a half at the time. But I was young enough then not to realise that that year was anything special. The family had moved to the north-east five years earlier, which is about when my earliest memories start. It had snowed most winters - probably every winter - since we moved, and when you're nine, a week seems as long as a month anyway. So I didn't know it was unusual for the snow to be on the ground for over two months.
And, at that age, I had none of the problems that I have with cold now. I enjoyed playing in the snow, making snowmen and snow castles. (Take a seaside plastic bucket, fill it with snow and turn it over.) I remember about ten years ago my father telling me that he'd found a photograph of me and my sisters playing in the snow probably that year. I was wearing short trousers (and I guess my sisters were wearing dresses or skirts). No nine-year old boy would wear long trousers back then. (I never found that photograph when we were clearing out my father's house. I don't know if any of my siblings have it.)
I don't even remember having problems with school. My primary school was literally at the bottom of the street, so I had no trouble getting there - one of the teachers lived next door to us - and I don't think the school was ever closed.
I do remember that my brother was less than a year old then and that my mother used to wash his nappies, put them out on the line to dry and when she brought them in, they were as stiff as boards and she had to stand them in front of the fire to thaw. (The BBC programme mentioned a shortage of disposable nappies, but we had the old washable kind.)
And I remember the disruption to sport but only peripherally. The pools panel was introduced, and my parents were keen pools players - at one time my father had a part-time job collecting for Littlewoods. Saturday afternoon's Grandstand on the BBC was replaced by old films.
I do remember clearing the snow off the pavement outside our house and realising that it was coming up in big frozen slabs on which the lines in the paving stones were imprinted.
And I remember a few months later, the weather had become warm enough that the teacher had decided to take us outside for a lesson in the sunshine. I was sitting on the grass and looking at it and remembering how this had all been deep under snow.
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no subject
Date: 2013-01-19 11:13 pm (UTC)By the next period of heavy snow in the seventies (think we still had deep snow at Easter in 74 or 75) the steam trains were gone and the snow in the street was white-ish. Grey-white anyway.
But neither time were there many train cancellations etc. I think that the change to electric trains may be a factor, they're lighter and slip on the tracks more.
The only time I know of a school closing in London was in the early eighties; an idiot schoolkeeper turned the boiler off completely over Xmas, a couple of radiators froze and burst, and when the heating was switched back on after Xmas the flood brought down the main hall's ceiling. The kids were ecstatic!
no subject
Date: 2013-01-20 02:03 pm (UTC)I suppose we were lucky we didn't get trapped in the school. Thursday morning it was snowing, and went on snowing all morning. (We had a swimming lesson that morning in a nice heated pool.) Lunchtime, the headmaster called us all into the assmembly hall and said that the snow ploughs had been along the lane the school was on and had given up when they got as far as the school. They didn't think they could keep the road open much longer so the head had called the school bus company to come and fetch us.
Of course, when I got home, my mother was out and I didn't have a house key in those days, but even waiting around in the snow for half an hour, I don't remember feeling particularly cold.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-20 10:18 am (UTC)