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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2021 22:00:57 GMT
Think it cold? Nah. There's some footage of the GU and the Thames from about 26:55.
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Post by JohnV on Jan 26, 2021 8:10:56 GMT
Think it cold? Nah. There's some footage of the GU and the Thames from about 26:55. That was a bad winter.
I remember walking though the snow to the main dairy to get some milk, (deliveries completely stopped*) they wouldn't let you have any if you didn't bring your empty bottles back. I didn't know that, so my first collection involved about a 6 mile trek through pretty deep snow. We were ok for coal because my Dad always managed to save up and buy a ton or so in the summer when the prices were lower. Food got a bit basic but plenty but we had trouble getting veg out of the garden.
* for the benefit of the youngsters on here .... in those days almost everybody had their milk delivered ... about the only milk you could buy in shops was sterilised
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Post by bodger on Jan 26, 2021 8:17:42 GMT
School was closed for a week or so and I continued to do my paper round (and those of other paper boys who were too wimpy to turn up) whenever supplies of newspapers came through (often not before 10am.)
At the beginning of the summer term the snow from the cricket pitch had been piled up by a bulldozer. There were still remnants of snow when we broke up for the summer holidays.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2021 9:02:51 GMT
We built a proper igloo in a mates back garden ... made snow blocks and built it up slowly. We were all amazed how warm it was inside it  Rog |
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Post by kris on Jan 26, 2021 9:36:05 GMT
Ah yes the good old days.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2021 9:39:20 GMT
Funny how every generation seems to have a 'really bad winter' ... I recall my parents always said 1947 was their worst experience.
Rog
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2021 9:40:12 GMT
How times change.
These days if it goes below about -2 or there is a flurry of snow all the news outlets talk about severe weather and everything stops working.
And only a week or two ago they were all predicting that snow would be a thing of the past in the UK due to the global warning.
Then it snows.
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Post by lollygagger on Jan 26, 2021 9:41:59 GMT
I was 3. I don't remember anything about it.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2021 9:45:16 GMT
I was 3. I don't remember anything about it. I was cold - minus 2 |
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Post by JohnV on Jan 26, 2021 10:41:59 GMT
Funny how every generation seems to have a 'really bad winter' ... I recall my parents always said 1947 was their worst experience. Rog I was too young to remember anything about the 1947 winter but I remember being told about it and I have also read about it.
It wasn't quite as cold or as long as '63 but the snow was a lot heavier and drifted very deeply almost everywhere and the thaw was very fast on frozen ground and it produced very severe flooding to follow all over the country. (the flooding of the Trent and Humber areas was very bad as were the Fens)
I think as well, at that time everything was knackered, all the infrastructure had been kept going only on a make do and mend basis during the war and the debt was crippling re-investment ...... the whole country was on the bones of it's arse.
(It's one of those ironies that stand out to me, how the one country that stood up against the Nazis and spent all to defeat them, ended up the most indebted country in the world)
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2021 11:47:23 GMT
I seem to remember as a child going every year to Hampstead Heath tobogganing, in hindsight it might just have been one or two years, 1963 I was 11 so that's one I should remember.
The other bad ones I remember were 81/82 where temps were down to -24 with loads of snow and 96/97 where the temperature didn't go above freezing during the day for a month and I was iced in at Lock14 on the Aylesbury arm having tried to get to Marswoth for new years eve
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Post by airedaleman on Jan 26, 2021 13:43:07 GMT
The 63 winter started on Boxing Day 62. We had been to see Penny’s father in Brackley and it started to snow in the afternoon. We had an old Ford consul and the 20 mile journey home was a real nightmare but somehow we made it. The working boats who stopped for Christmas never got going again for weeks and it spelt the end of a lot of long distance traffic.
I had just left the Merchant Navy and was helping a friend part time with his coal business which also stocked pre packed King Coal . One day we had just stacked the shop with bags of it and some was still on the lorry for other customers when a bus stopped outside and the driver got out and brought two bags quickly followed by most of the passengers who all brought some as well. These were 56 lb bags so that bus probably had a ton of coal on it. Every morning we had to hold a flaming rag over the air intake of the lorry to get it to start and there were fires light under the diesel tanks to melt the wax in the diesel which had formed overnight. We blended paraffin in ours to try and stop the wax developing, probably didn’t due the engine much good but they were pretty crude then.
Many days we went to a pit in Nuneaton and filled the coal sacks from railway trucks after breaking it all up as it had frozen solid overnight or got in the queue at Northampton gas works for the allocation of coke which we bagged from big hoppers. It was bloody hard and cold work and I seriously thought about going back to sea especially to somewhere warm.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2021 14:18:17 GMT
I seem to remember as a child going every year to Hampstead Heath tobogganing, in hindsight it might just have been one or two years, 1963 I was 11 so that's one I should remember. The other bad ones I remember were 81/82 where temps were down to -24 with loads of snow and 96/97 where the temperature didn't go above freezing during the day for a month and I was iced in at Lock14 on the Aylesbury arm having tried to get to Marswoth for new years eve 96/97 I was moored in Cookham upper lock cut during the big freeze. The whole lock cut was frozen quite thick and even some of the edges of the main River itself were frozen. I don't recall it being a problem in my narrow boat which had a sensible coal fire. I had a car so I must have been getting coal from somewhere but I can't recall where. I've got a photo of the boat somewhere with all the ice. |
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Post by phil70 on Jan 26, 2021 15:11:06 GMT
I was too young to remember 47 but 63 I remember very well because as a keen cyclist I wasn't going to let a bit of snow stop me. I recall climbing up a bank to bypass a snowdrift and passing through villages that had been cut off for days (due to said snowdrifts)
80/81 is a memory that sticks with me because I was a service engineer and travelled all over the country from Dover to Ayr and also Ireland.
Happy days, all I had to worry about was if Chris was managing OK (she was)
Phil
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2021 18:46:06 GMT
Think it cold? Nah. There's some footage of the GU and the Thames from about 26:55. I watched that the other evening - looked bastard cold! |
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