It was the best winter of my childhood! No school for over two months, sledging, snowballing and ice slides and sleeping on our mattresses dragged to the sitting room to stay warm by the coal fire . Tough on my mother trying to make meals when the shops ran out of supplies and there were no deliveries though, and even more on my policeman father on foot patrol through heavy snow for hours at a stretch.
Indeed. I trekked up our lane to school and back, no matter what. We were NOT expected to stay home - after all, the teachers managed to get there (how? Skis?) and so the kids had no excuse!😁😁😁
There was an excellent documentary on BBC TV a few nights ago, about that other terrible winter, 1947. I was 5 yrs old. That year was worse, because ,not only were houses poorly built and those that survived the blitz, had no Central Heating (usually just one coal fire) NO Double Glazing, or insulation of any kind. Outside toilet, which froze solid, breaking the toilet bowl, and caste Iron Cistern. Water pipes froze then burst. On top of this, many things were still on ration, including Coal. We had to walk to the coal depot with our own buckets, old prambs and trollys, waite in huge queues for out rations worth, then push /carry it all home. Much of that coal had gravel and stones in it, which exploaded once hot enough, and shoot accross the room like bullets. It was called by the people, ''Nutty Slack''. There were no huge snow clearing machines then. like buldozers etc, well I never saw any. I too couldn't go to school, Although the playground was seen from my bedroom window, but many schools were closed, because there was no heating fuel. 1963 was very bad for many, but 1947 was worse, because of the above shortages and home conditions etc
My great aunt lived in a country cottage in '47, and I'm told the council had to dig a tunnel to her house so she didn't suffocate, as the place was completely covered. The deepest snow I experienced was in 1990, though it only lasted a few days. I opened the back door one morning to find snow chest high. Dug myself out and all the power and phone lines were down.
Pre-climate change people knew all about the unpredictability of Nature and are probably the last to go along totally with the politically orchestrated (follow the money) agenda that has us facing "net zero" policies here in advanced Western countries, whilst the rest of the world ignores such draconian impositions and science neglects to address the reality of world-wide volcanic activity above and beneath the oceans (including methane emissions that are reported from the ocean bed in huge quantities) and solar flares that have a demonstrable effect on the climate.
Remember it well....may have been a paralysing but most work went on and we still went to school. I had a paper round and still had t do it and no football for months....happy days. 10 cms of snow now and the world stops
I was twelve and loved every minute of it. Sledging, skating, and endless fun. We didn’t have frozen pipes and we had enough coal. Everyone we knew still got to work. This was my happiest winter.
Me too. Tough on a farm, Cattle to feed every day. Kettles of hot water to thaw out frozen ballcocks on water troughs, crow bars to break the ice on the troughs. No snow ploughs out in the countryside, our village was cut off for weeks. My father tied Tea Chests onto the plough, and managed to get to the nearby town to fetch Milk, Bread etc for the villagers. Highlight for us kids was no school....
I was 7 years old, we lived in SE London, I remember Dad thawing out the pipe that fed water to the tank on our toilet. Our only heat was an open coal fire in the living room and a Paraffin heater in the kitchen. At night we would take rubber hot water bottles with us to bed. Upstairs bedrooms were below freezing, I remember a glass of water by my bed having ice on it :-(
In these days very few people had central heating as we know it today, never mind double glazing. I remember it well and still have pictures of me sledging.
Our climate has defintely changed. We used to get snow every year, thunderstorms that lasted hours and heat every Summer, it used to be pretty predictable. Nowadays it's always just damp, mild dross. I'd love to see snow like this in the UK again one day.
I was born in '81 and enjoyed at least one decent snowfall most winters (based on memories of playing with friends and also photos of me as a baby and toddler). I noticed as the 90s went on that a proper snowfall was becoming quite rare, and from 2000-2010 I didn't see more than an inch, some years not even that, and it's been much the same since - with the exception of 2010 when it was horrendous for a few weeks. Quite a lot of snow and the temperatures persisted well below freezing for a few weeks, making for attractive snowy scenes but very icy and uncomfortably cold too. That was the coldest winter I've ever experienced and the worst - apart from being too old to have snowball fights it was just far too cold to be pleasant doing that sort of thing, and trying to get to work (waiting for trains to turn up...) was no fun! As you say, all we get now is mildly cold and damp, not fun. Maybe a bit of ice occasionally to slip on! It's also not good for gardeners or nature in general, because it allows pests to survive in stronger numbers over winter and for new pests from abroad to survive here.
@@andrewwhitehouse3869 Decades of capitalist austerity in order to shovel our wealth into the pockets of the rich class have denuded our country of public services. Private affluence, public squalor.
I remember it and I wouldn't like to see it again! I can remember waiting for a bus crying with the pain if the cold and I remember digging my cat out from under 6ft of snow where she'd got trapped. It lasted about 3 months. It was pretty miserable tbh.
The winter my sister was born (Feb 63) my mother had vivid memories of it and the advice given to her about caring for a baby in such low temperatures.
It’s interesting how 3 severely cold and snowy winters for the UK came 16 years apart from each other - the winters of 1946/47, 1962/63 and 1978/79. I bet this winter was absolutely devastating for farmers, but would also be interesting to see what a winter like that would like that nowadays in a warmer climate and higher population.
you're right, i remember the winter of 94/95 being rather snowy and also 2010/11 it was around -15C for a week in Glasgow and we were trapped for days due to the snow not being able to melt. Next really bad winter will be 2026/27.
I remember it well. It was great fun for an eight year old! In particular, I recall visiting a country home and park near Buxton where a little girl was attacked and thrown in the air by a stag and a boy fell through ice where in thinned out going over a waterfall. He was rescued but it was all terribly exciting. The Jack Frost on windows was very good that year, every day an adventure commencing by getting dressed in bed and crowding round the kitchen fire. We still went to school but walking there through the snow was fun and we sat through lessons wearing our coats, hats and gloves. Simple, convivial, times.
And lighting a coal fire in the living room before breakfast, with the help of a broadsheet newspaper to suck life into the embers/flames. Yet we just got on and dealt with it, adapting and achieving without the whining and scaremongering we witness today.
My Father told me that in 47, their water pipes froze in North Yorks and he collected snow to boil the whistling kettle! In South Wales, my school was closed for weeks and snow was piled up as high as the houses on the grass corners of every street. This froze and some children carved steps and a look out at the top!
We lived near Ipswich in Suffolk - I was eight then and I remember it. I got the 'hotaches' for the first time. My older brother took me out sledging on the heath and my hands became wet and extremely cold in my woollen gloves. When we got in my mother held my hands under her arms until they warmed a bit. It was very painful as the circulation came back!
I just about remember this, it was clear at bedtime but when we woke it was windowsill height. I opened the front door in all innocence to have a look & four foot of snow fell in!! I was told to help get it out & had the brain to fetch the shovel.. This of course entailed opening the back door to find one in the shed. LOL Happy days. The milk man still delivered, we were lucky enough to have a some coal & food in. Thick ice inside the windows though, especially upstairs.
I was a 12 year old lad when this happened, supposedly going back to boarding school, in Dorset from Essex, where I still live. This was in the january of 1963. We were supposed to go back via train from Waterloo but my journey back was delayed for a week as transport at the Dorset end couldn't get through to my boardind school. When we eventually got back, we were on the coach from Dorchester station and the snowdrifts were 8 feet above the roof for about half the journey.
I delivered morning newspapers in 2ft deep snow in Dumfries, Scotland as a 12 yr old schoolboy and never missed a delivery because of weather that year. My thighs would become bright red and felt numb, as in those days there was no specialist winter clothing. I wore denim jeans, one pair of socks and wellington boots.Two jerseys, a liberty bodice and a cheap anorak that got soaking wet. A pair of woollen gloves, no hat, so my ears felt frozen and you could probably snap them off😀.
My mum used to talk about this winter, large swathes of Cornwall were cut off.. villages helped dig out the lanes so that farmers could get the milk delivered.. there’s some old black and white footage of it on BFI 30 or 40 villagers digging out the farmer and his milk..😄
In the late Summer of '63, I was on a coach trip to Cornwall, we stopped for refreshments at the famous ''Jamaica Inn''. on Bodmin Moor. In that famous Inn ( which has a fire in the grate, burning none stop for over 100 years) On the walls, were photographs, taken back in the winter, from the Inn, of a wilderness of snow, and some, showed a SnowPlow in the distances, fighting it's way towards the Inn. They had been marrooned for 2 months I think it was, but the Peat fire, was kept going.
Bodmin moor has always been a bad area (due to its elevation) for snow when it’s hit. That winter the majority of Cornwall’s villages were cut off for months, mainly because the majority of the roads leading into them were our notorious narrow roads, and they couldn’t get the snow ploughs down them. In the end the army stepped in to help, especially for the villages and towns on the north coast of Cornwall that were hit the hardest. Some were under 20ft of snow drift on the narrow roads leading in! Mum said apart from there not being any heating due to no electric (we were in a modern new build that had electric blower hearing system) and no water, it was made worse because the outside world couldn’t get into Cornwall. So shops started running out of everything, as none of the deliveries could get past Plymouth. Mum and dad got married in 62 so it was their first winter as man and wife. My brother arrived in 65 me in 68, mum always said she was glad she wasn’t pregnant during it, as she knew someone who had gone into labour and had to try to get to hospital. @@MrDaiseymay
They would in Cornwall …. Community is huge down here! It’s literally bred into us! 😀But I know what you mean, the one thing I found hard when I went to live in London in my youth, was no one spoke to each other! I remember saying hello when I first moved there to my next door neighbour, and he just looked at me like I had threatened him lol… Soon realised it wasn’t the done thing, even worse on the tubes and buses lol..@@URFUTUREUK
They would in Cornwall …. Community is huge down here! It’s literally bred into us Cornish!😀 But I know what you mean, the one thing I found hard when I went to live in London in my youth, was no one spoke to each other! I remember saying hello when I first moved there to my next door neighbour, and he just looked at me like I had threatened him lol… Soon realised it wasn’t the done thing, even worse on the tubes and buses lol.. @URFUTUREUK
My wife was born in 1963. My father in law was in hospital after cutting half a finger off at work. Mother in law would walk 3 miles with pram to visit her husband. Tough people living in hard times, never complained.
I left school in 2006. We used to get at least one day a year of school every year. Since about the time left, the kids here have not had a single day off because of snow. It's just not happening. Winters are too mild, you can almost count on both hands how many days of frost we get.
@@OrganMusicYT nah, in the 17th C we had the Little Ice-age - like for 4/5 months of snow, frozen sea, a few yrs over Europe and further.... it gradually got milder - many yrs with v little snow - same cycle as today
@@OrganMusicYT but there is no proof it's caused by man, nor that any action from man can stop them; these cycles have taken place since year dot North America was suffering bad winters and droughts in hot summers from 1350 - 1750; coal use / carbon use was a hardly a cause
I seriously doubt there will EVER be another winter that even comes remotely close to the ferocity of 1962/3 or indeed early 1947. If it did we would be in BIG BIG trouble
I completely missed the freeze as I was in hospital for most of that time, 7 weeks more or less. The wards were nice and warm too. Trouble was, when you are ten going on eleven, hospitals can be boring, by the time I went home, all the snow was gone, no slides, barricades and snowball fights.
l was nine . Remember walking to school and seeing dead birds on the pavement that had died of cold , ice inside the windows , no buses so being out in the countryside we were cut off for weeks . Of course being a kid it was exciting and great fun not so for the adults . Happy days .
I'm old enough to remember that winter. I was eight at the time. My father had just moved from the southern tip of Ireland to the northern tip for a new job. My poor mother thought that every winter up there would be as difficult as that one. We children thought it was great fun and we couldn't get to school on many days. It certainly was one for the record books, although I think that 2010 might have recorded lower temperatures. What made it so different was that Britain and Ireland weren't prepared for such conditions, unlike places that regularly get harsh winters. I doubt that we are much better prepared now if we got another like 1963. It wouldn't make sense if they only come along once every 50 years or so. If the climate remains relatively mild from now on I won't complain. I've lived in cold countries and briefly worked in Antarctica and I know that the cold makes life so much more difficult in every way.
I experienced '62/63, but my father had experienced both, he said '47 had much more snow, but '63 was much colder. I can attest to that, I remember when it started, getting off the school bus, my eyelids were starting to sting and freeze, and a week later my mate just walked over a lake to his house. There were no warnings, there was no point, you could run a train over most waterways.
My mother lived thru both and complained a lot more about ‘63. I think the lack of coal made ‘47 very tough. I heard some adults in ‘76 compare that summer drought to the constant snow 13 years earlier. And my grandfather (born 1886) talked about some epic winter in the late 1800s that trumped even ‘47 and ‘63!
It’s funny as I was only talking about this with my wife’s sisters father-in-law over Xmas. He’s in his 80s, & he recalls ‘47 being slightly worse than ‘63 in Yorkshire as they’d never seen so much snow…although the wintry weather of 1963 went on longer, & it majorly impacted on the football season, & there was no horse-racing in England between 23 December and 7 March 1963 😳
With temperatures so cold the sea froze in places, 1963 is one of the coldest winters on record. Bringing blizzards, snow drifts, blocks of ice, and temperatures lower than -20 °C, it was colder than the winter of 1947, and the coldest since 1740.
I was living in an upstairs flat with my mum , as others have said ice on the inside of the windows, very difficult to keep warm, the whole house had no running water for weeks as the pipes kept bursting, luckily we didn’t get flooded below us weren’t so lucky, never forget it , not to much fun.
I wasn’t born yet but know all about it with my dad telling me. The worst winter I can remember is the one in 2010. My car got stuck in snow for 2 weeks. I had just been to Farmfoods and just left all the frozen food in the car instead of carrying it home.
I remember the snow in late November of 2010, and it was so cold that - as I live in Wiltshire - parts of the river Avon had frozen over, something I’d never seen before or since.
Winter February 1947 at whitstable kent my nannie took me to the beach to see where the sea had frozen. I know it was then as I was staying with her as my brother was being born. ❤
This was a memorable time, for me personally as a young Met. Police cadet waiting to join the Force (in early March of that year) and visiting the family home in the snow-filled lanes of the Wiltshire/Berkshire border, with bus services suspended and self-reliance the order of the day - for days/weeks on end! Anyone who lived through that time as an adult will surely retain a healthy respect for the vagaries of Nature, not least in these obsessive politically-orchestrated times focussing on the alleged results of human activity affecting climate change.
Remember it well, it started snowing on new years eve, and in the morning the cat disappeared under the snow, the snow was banked up in heaps until March, today they would not be able to cope with such snow at all.
If this happened today, people would be phoning the emergency services to enquire which McDonald's were still open. People just got on with it, if you had no milk delivery you walked to the nearest dairy. Brought up in a house with no central heating you were used to cold, but ice six feet thick, that was something else. It made me shudder seeing that gentleman put candles next to the net curtains.
I was 6 years old, remember my dad going mental, having to pull me out of the igloo the bigger kids had made me go inside to check it out. Had numb bum for days.
Well my husband was born in 1947 and his parents said it was bad but I remember 1963 I was 13 and walked to school everyday we where never off school and the snowdrifts were high I live in north east of England it made us hardy not soft
In late February 2018 we had pretty ferocious cold, just for a week! Look at the trouble THAT caused-now imagine if it lasted ten times longer-that was Winter 1962/3
We couldn't get out our front door, and the downstairs windows were have covered with the lovely snow. We loved it, but our folks were not impressed, Here in Blackburn, east Lancashire.
So sad we can’t have this today !! Could you imagine the blame game ?? Today’s namby pamby society would collapse. I can recall tobogganing out of first floor bedroom windows and being towed on a sledge nearly a mile to the nearest bus stop so as to get to school. Now schools are shut at the slightest hint of snow - pathetic!!
I turned 2 that winter. Along with my older brother who was 5, both of us had to stay at home. No school for him. We had a coal fired boiler in our house. The presumption now is that this unusual cold weather was caused by a volcanic eruption in Hawaii.
There was no major eruption in Hawaii that year. Besides, these are effusive volcanos. The spew relatively little ash into the air as the lava is highly viscous
@@boxsterman77 I did say presumed, so it was clearly an incorrect theory, which was believed to be the case. Remember this was the early sixties and metrology and volcanology were not as good as they are today. Besides a major eruption only has to happen in the previous year, to cause problems.
People helped one another and people went to work as best they could. We didn't have central heating, fitted carpets or double glazing but we coped. When I read about the numbskulls putting porridge on the busts in museums ... I have to shake my head in dismay...how would these fools cope ?
And before 1500 we experienced temperatures to rival the south of France for a few hundred years.... Must've been all those medieval factories and cars that they had
At 18 months old I threw my blanket on the electric bar heater that my parents were using to keep me warm. The resulting fire could have killed me. Was rescued after screeming and fire was contained to the small box room by local fire brigade.
I was 10 and helped my father dig a trench across the street to get to our neighbors across the road...but as my father was a coal miner we had a big supply of miners concessionary coal in the coal hole,
Most importantly, were there toilet rolls on the shelves? Just goes to show(?) the iconic steam train is an amazing piece of kit, and if this were to happen again a good infrastructure of railways could keep everybody surviving for some time. It does for certain show that due to our lives being so easy in the modern developed nation of today, we're bombarded by utter BS that really doesn't matter, but yet society as a whole gets so irrationally irritated by it.
Who used toilet rolls in '63? Squares of newspaper, if you were lucky you had a bit of "Andy Cap" to pass the time. You did'nt stop long as it was a bit chilly in the outside lav.
Without a doubt the harshest winter in living memory. ..Due to global warming, we will never see another winter as harsh as this again in the UK. Just as well because IF we did we would be screwed.
Where were the eco warriors 😂😂 They said the world was going to end 1960 Am from north Newcastle 1960 was totally cold freezing always Winter for months But always had a white Christmas ❤ Great happiness Golden years back then 1960 Great England ❤❤ Ps We still have the eco warriors 2024 😂😂😂
We are witnessing a normal change in the earths cycle. Cilmate change but look around thr world. The equator has remained much unchanged its the north and south hemispheres where the changes are noticeable. Wind directions are changing, bringing different weather pattens . And so much more.
Yes ! but we did get to school 😝... My ( late ) mother was SO upset that the snow had not completely thawed by March , she went out into the garden with our hosepipe to melt it ... sort of worked ( ? ) ............ DAVE™🛑
It was the best winter of my childhood! No school for over two months, sledging, snowballing and ice slides and sleeping on our mattresses dragged to the sitting room to stay warm by the coal fire . Tough on my mother trying to make meals when the shops ran out of supplies and there were no deliveries though, and even more on my policeman father on foot patrol through heavy snow for hours at a stretch.
I'm shivering just watching it!
My Dad too was a policeman during this Arctic weather 🛷🏔️🥶🌨️❄️🇬🇧
No School, our school never closed we went to school every day week days that is
I remember it well.
The snowmen we made on Thursday December 27th were still there on March 1st...what a winter.
Winters were long, but so were the summer days.
Was born Jan 1st 63 I was cold then and still am. 😢
I remember it well ,it lasted for weeks but we still went to school,
Wat.country.was.u.in.???????.it.lasted.for.months.
Indeed. I trekked up our lane to school and back, no matter what. We were NOT expected to stay home - after all, the teachers managed to get there (how? Skis?) and so the kids had no excuse!😁😁😁
No you couldn't have
There was an excellent documentary on BBC TV a few nights ago, about that other terrible winter, 1947. I was 5 yrs old. That year was worse, because ,not only were houses poorly built and those that survived the blitz, had no Central Heating (usually just one coal fire) NO Double Glazing, or insulation of any kind. Outside toilet, which froze solid, breaking the toilet bowl, and caste Iron Cistern. Water pipes froze then burst.
On top of this, many things were still on ration, including Coal. We had to walk to the coal depot with our own buckets, old prambs and trollys, waite in huge queues for out rations worth, then push /carry it all home. Much of that coal had gravel and stones in it, which exploaded once hot enough, and shoot accross the room like bullets. It was called by the people, ''Nutty Slack''. There were no huge snow clearing machines then. like buldozers etc, well I never saw any. I too couldn't go to school, Although the playground was seen from my bedroom window, but many schools were closed, because there was no heating fuel. 1963 was very bad for many, but 1947 was worse, because of the above shortages and home conditions etc
My great aunt lived in a country cottage in '47, and I'm told the council had to dig a tunnel to her house so she didn't suffocate, as the place was completely covered. The deepest snow I experienced was in 1990, though it only lasted a few days. I opened the back door one morning to find snow chest high. Dug myself out and all the power and phone lines were down.
Pre-climate change people knew all about the unpredictability of Nature and are probably the
last to go along totally with the politically orchestrated (follow the money) agenda that has
us facing "net zero" policies here in advanced Western countries, whilst the rest of the world
ignores such draconian impositions and science neglects to address the reality of world-wide
volcanic activity above and beneath the oceans (including methane emissions that are reported
from the ocean bed in huge quantities) and solar flares that have a demonstrable effect on the
climate.
I wasn't born this but vaguely remember the big freeze of 63 (Started on Boxing Day 62) ua-cam.com/video/JPFsxT-D8jE/v-deo.html
Boy this brings back shivering memories. I left school that year.
Snap
Remember it well....may have been a paralysing but most work went on and we still went to school. I had a paper round and still had t do it and no football for months....happy days. 10 cms of snow now and the world stops
I was twelve and loved every minute of it. Sledging, skating, and endless fun. We didn’t have frozen pipes and we had enough coal. Everyone we knew still got to work. This was my happiest winter.
Me too. Tough on a farm, Cattle to feed every day. Kettles of hot water to thaw out frozen ballcocks on water troughs, crow bars to break the ice on the troughs. No snow ploughs out in the countryside, our village was cut off for weeks. My father tied Tea Chests onto the plough, and managed to get to the nearby town to fetch Milk, Bread etc for the villagers. Highlight for us kids was no school....
Is that you, Uncle Richard? Gaynor xxxx
I was 7 years old, we lived in SE London, I remember Dad thawing out the pipe that fed water to the tank on our toilet.
Our only heat was an open coal fire in the living room and a Paraffin heater in the kitchen. At night we would take rubber hot water bottles with us to bed. Upstairs bedrooms were below freezing, I remember a glass of water by my bed having ice on it :-(
It was so cold in our house I could scrape the ice off our windows! Thick coats were put on our beds!
Double-glazing, fitted carpets and central heating all followed fast on this terrible winter, 3:55 3:56 if you could afford them
I remember that winter, I was seven. We used to go to school in short trousers 😂
COLD 😂
In these days very few people had central heating as we know it today, never mind double glazing. I remember it well and still have pictures of me sledging.
Our climate has defintely changed. We used to get snow every year, thunderstorms that lasted hours and heat every Summer, it used to be pretty predictable. Nowadays it's always just damp, mild dross. I'd love to see snow like this in the UK again one day.
God help us if it did!!!
Local council or country in general can't cope if we have an inch of snow these days 🤔
I was born in '81 and enjoyed at least one decent snowfall most winters (based on memories of playing with friends and also photos of me as a baby and toddler). I noticed as the 90s went on that a proper snowfall was becoming quite rare, and from 2000-2010 I didn't see more than an inch, some years not even that, and it's been much the same since - with the exception of 2010 when it was horrendous for a few weeks. Quite a lot of snow and the temperatures persisted well below freezing for a few weeks, making for attractive snowy scenes but very icy and uncomfortably cold too. That was the coldest winter I've ever experienced and the worst - apart from being too old to have snowball fights it was just far too cold to be pleasant doing that sort of thing, and trying to get to work (waiting for trains to turn up...) was no fun! As you say, all we get now is mildly cold and damp, not fun. Maybe a bit of ice occasionally to slip on! It's also not good for gardeners or nature in general, because it allows pests to survive in stronger numbers over winter and for new pests from abroad to survive here.
@@andrewwhitehouse3869 Decades of capitalist austerity in order to shovel our wealth into the pockets of the rich class have denuded our country of public services. Private affluence, public squalor.
I remember it and I wouldn't like to see it again! I can remember waiting for a bus crying with the pain if the cold and I remember digging my cat out from under 6ft of snow where she'd got trapped. It lasted about 3 months. It was pretty miserable tbh.
It's all cyclical. In 20 years time we'll be moaning about all the snow and how cold it is all the time 😂
The winter my sister was born (Feb 63) my mother had vivid memories of it and the advice given to her about caring for a baby in such low temperatures.
It’s interesting how 3 severely cold and snowy winters for the UK came 16 years apart from each other - the winters of 1946/47, 1962/63 and 1978/79.
I bet this winter was absolutely devastating for farmers, but would also be interesting to see what a winter like that would like that nowadays in a warmer climate and higher population.
you're right, i remember the winter of 94/95 being rather snowy and also 2010/11 it was around -15C for a week in Glasgow and we were trapped for days due to the snow not being able to melt. Next really bad winter will be 2026/27.
I remember this, snow drifted up the house.
I remember it well. It was great fun for an eight year old! In particular, I recall visiting a country home and park near Buxton where a little girl was attacked and thrown in the air by a stag and a boy fell through ice where in thinned out going over a waterfall. He was rescued but it was all terribly exciting. The Jack Frost on windows was very good that year, every day an adventure commencing by getting dressed in bed and crowding round the kitchen fire. We still went to school but walking there through the snow was fun and we sat through lessons wearing our coats, hats and gloves. Simple, convivial, times.
Women bang on about equality, but it's always men that are the strongest and dig us out of the most challenging of situations. Great respect for men.❤
Remember that winter - ice on the inside of your bedroom windows (single glazed glass of course)
And with metal window frames, couldn’t open them, if you wanted, for months, all frozen up on the insides
And lighting a coal fire in the living room before breakfast, with the help of a broadsheet newspaper to
suck life into the embers/flames. Yet we just got on and dealt with it, adapting and achieving without
the whining and scaremongering we witness today.
My Father told me that in 47, their water pipes froze in North Yorks and he collected snow to boil the whistling kettle! In South Wales, my school was closed for weeks and snow was piled up as high as the houses on the grass corners of every street. This froze and some children carved steps and a look out at the top!
I remember as a 9 year old along with my brother helping to dig out my dad's van so he could get to work. Today the country would ground to a halt
Best winter in living memory. Or at least, mine
We lived near Ipswich in Suffolk - I was eight then and I remember it. I got the 'hotaches' for the first time. My older brother took me out sledging on the heath and my hands became wet and extremely cold in my woollen gloves. When we got in my mother held my hands under her arms until they warmed a bit. It was very painful as the circulation came back!
Now there's a word I haven't heard in years - "hotaches". And I also remember getting them.
In north Norfolk my younger brother and I made snow pies on the beach but I don’t remember much more than that.
I just about remember this, it was clear at bedtime but when we woke it was windowsill height. I opened the front door in all innocence to have a look & four foot of snow fell in!! I was told to help get it out & had the brain to fetch the shovel.. This of course entailed opening the back door to find one in the shed. LOL Happy days. The milk man still delivered, we were lucky enough to have a some coal & food in. Thick ice inside the windows though, especially upstairs.
I was a 12 year old lad when this happened, supposedly going back to boarding school, in Dorset from Essex, where I still live. This was in the january of 1963. We were supposed to go back via train from Waterloo but my journey back was delayed for a week as transport at the Dorset end couldn't get through to my boardind school. When we eventually got back, we were on the coach from Dorchester station and the snowdrifts were 8 feet above the roof for about half the journey.
I delivered morning newspapers in 2ft deep snow in Dumfries, Scotland as a 12 yr old schoolboy and never missed a delivery because of weather that year. My thighs would become bright red and felt numb, as in those days there was no specialist winter clothing. I wore denim jeans, one pair of socks and wellington boots.Two jerseys, a liberty bodice and a cheap anorak that got soaking wet. A pair of woollen gloves, no hat, so my ears felt frozen and you could probably snap them off😀.
I REMEMBER IT WELL.
My mum used to talk about this winter, large swathes of Cornwall were cut off.. villages helped dig out the lanes so that farmers could get the milk delivered.. there’s some old black and white footage of it on BFI 30 or 40 villagers digging out the farmer and his milk..😄
In the late Summer of '63, I was on a coach trip to Cornwall, we stopped for refreshments at the famous ''Jamaica Inn''. on Bodmin Moor. In that famous Inn ( which has a fire in the grate, burning none stop for over 100 years) On the walls, were photographs, taken back in the winter, from the Inn, of a wilderness of snow, and some, showed a SnowPlow in the distances, fighting it's way towards the Inn. They had been marrooned for 2 months I think it was, but the Peat fire, was kept going.
Bodmin moor has always been a bad area (due to its elevation) for snow when it’s hit.
That winter the majority of Cornwall’s villages were cut off for months, mainly because the majority of the roads leading into them were our notorious narrow roads, and they couldn’t get the snow ploughs down them. In the end the army stepped in to help, especially for the villages and towns on the north coast of Cornwall that were hit the hardest. Some were under 20ft of snow drift on the narrow roads leading in!
Mum said apart from there not being any heating due to no electric (we were in a modern new build that had electric blower hearing system) and no water, it was made worse because the outside world couldn’t get into Cornwall. So shops started running out of everything, as none of the deliveries could get past Plymouth.
Mum and dad got married in 62 so it was their first winter as man and wife. My brother arrived in 65 me in 68, mum always said she was glad she wasn’t pregnant during it, as she knew someone who had gone into labour and had to try to get to hospital.
@@MrDaiseymay
Aww people would never do that now. I miss community spirit.
They would in Cornwall …. Community is huge down here! It’s literally bred into us! 😀But I know what you mean, the one thing I found hard when I went to live in London in my youth, was no one spoke to each other! I remember saying hello when I first moved there to my next door neighbour, and he just looked at me like I had threatened him lol… Soon realised it wasn’t the done thing, even worse on the tubes and buses lol..@@URFUTUREUK
They would in Cornwall …. Community is huge down here! It’s literally bred into us Cornish!😀
But I know what you mean, the one thing I found hard when I went to live in London in my youth, was no one spoke to each other! I remember saying hello when I first moved there to my next door neighbour, and he just looked at me like I had threatened him lol… Soon realised it wasn’t the done thing, even worse on the tubes and buses lol.. @URFUTUREUK
My wife was born that year. Explains her cold cold ruthless heart.
My wife was born in 1963. My father in law was in hospital after cutting half a finger off at work. Mother in law would walk 3 miles with pram to visit her husband. Tough people living in hard times, never complained.
I left school in 2006. We used to get at least one day a year of school every year. Since about the time left, the kids here have not had a single day off because of snow. It's just not happening. Winters are too mild, you can almost count on both hands how many days of frost we get.
@Jack_Warner it is. One of the facts of the world, the climate changes. That's proof that in my lifetime the climate has changed noticeably.
@Jack_Warner Ah, you have secret knowledge that is unavailable to NASA, the IPCC or any reputable scientific organisation? Do share!
@@OrganMusicYT nah, in the 17th C we had the Little Ice-age - like for 4/5 months of snow, frozen sea, a few yrs over Europe and further.... it gradually got milder - many yrs with v little snow - same cycle as today
@@johnlennox-pe2nq thank you for proving once again that the climate has changed and continues to change.
@@OrganMusicYT but there is no proof it's caused by man, nor that any action from man can stop them; these cycles have taken place since year dot
North America was suffering bad winters and droughts in hot summers from 1350 - 1750; coal use / carbon use was a hardly a cause
I seriously doubt there will EVER be another winter that even comes remotely close to the ferocity of 1962/3 or indeed early 1947. If it did we would be in BIG BIG trouble
I completely missed the freeze as I was in hospital for most of that time, 7 weeks more or less. The wards were nice and warm too. Trouble was, when you are ten going on eleven, hospitals can be boring, by the time I went home, all the snow was gone, no slides, barricades and snowball fights.
l was nine . Remember walking to school and seeing dead birds on the pavement that had died of cold , ice inside the windows , no buses so being out in the countryside we were cut off for weeks . Of course being a kid it was exciting and great fun not so for the adults . Happy days .
I'm old enough to remember that winter. I was eight at the time. My father had just moved from the southern tip of Ireland to the northern tip for a new job. My poor mother thought that every winter up there would be as difficult as that one. We children thought it was great fun and we couldn't get to school on many days. It certainly was one for the record books, although I think that 2010 might have recorded lower temperatures. What made it so different was that Britain and Ireland weren't prepared for such conditions, unlike places that regularly get harsh winters. I doubt that we are much better prepared now if we got another like 1963. It wouldn't make sense if they only come along once every 50 years or so. If the climate remains relatively mild from now on I won't complain. I've lived in cold countries and briefly worked in Antarctica and I know that the cold makes life so much more difficult in every way.
My dad told me about this, cars were frozen in blocks of ice for months.
My neighbour Bill told me the winter of 1947 was worse than '63! Can anyone on here remember both!?
I experienced '62/63, but my father had experienced both, he said '47 had much more snow, but '63 was much
colder. I can attest to that, I remember when it started,
getting off the school bus, my eyelids were starting to sting and freeze, and a week later my mate just walked over a lake to his house. There were no warnings, there was no point, you could run a train over most waterways.
It was very cold in 47 but it did not snow like in 63, plus there was no coal for heating in 47.
My mother lived thru both and complained a lot more about ‘63. I think the lack of coal made ‘47 very tough. I heard some adults in ‘76 compare that summer drought to the constant snow 13 years earlier. And my grandfather (born 1886) talked about some epic winter in the late 1800s that trumped even ‘47 and ‘63!
It’s funny as I was only talking about this with my wife’s sisters father-in-law over Xmas.
He’s in his 80s, & he recalls ‘47 being slightly worse than ‘63 in Yorkshire as they’d never seen so much snow…although the wintry weather of 1963 went on longer, & it majorly impacted on the football season, & there was no horse-racing in England between 23 December and 7 March 1963 😳
With temperatures so cold the sea froze in places, 1963 is one of the coldest winters on record. Bringing blizzards, snow drifts, blocks of ice, and temperatures lower than -20 °C, it was colder than the winter of 1947, and the coldest since 1740.
1:03 Trains in 1963 ploughing through the snow. Trains today are cancelled when there's a leaf on the line.
The wrong type of leaf
I remember it so well and yet we still went to our little village school on the Somerset levels
I was living in an upstairs flat with my mum , as others have said ice on the inside of the windows, very difficult to keep warm, the whole house had no running water for weeks as the pipes kept bursting, luckily we didn’t get flooded below us weren’t so lucky, never forget it , not to much fun.
I wasn’t born yet but know all about it with my dad telling me. The worst winter I can remember is the one in 2010. My car got stuck in snow for 2 weeks. I had just been to Farmfoods and just left all the frozen food in the car instead of carrying it home.
@Jack_Warner Cold, a bit - nothing like the winter of 1962-63. We'll not see the like again, ever.
I remember the snow in late November of 2010, and it was so cold that - as I live in Wiltshire - parts of the river Avon had frozen over, something I’d never seen before or since.
1985
January
North of France
Out of nowhere…
-20 degrees
We don't get winters like we use to no snow it's changed in the last 40 years
I was born in '61, so memories of this are almost non-existent, but my sister was born into it, in mid-January '63. She arrived late, understandably!
Winter February 1947 at whitstable kent my nannie took me to the beach to see where the sea had frozen. I know it was then as I was staying with her as my brother was being born. ❤
Freezing 🥶
This was a memorable time, for me personally as a young Met. Police cadet waiting to join the Force (in
early March of that year) and visiting the family home in the snow-filled lanes of the Wiltshire/Berkshire
border, with bus services suspended and self-reliance the order of the day - for days/weeks on end!
Anyone who lived through that time as an adult will surely retain a healthy respect for the vagaries of
Nature, not least in these obsessive politically-orchestrated times focussing on the alleged results
of human activity affecting climate change.
I was 8 in London never seen snow like it
My mother often told me snow was still on the ground the day I was born in Blackhill, Consett, County Durham, that day was 5th April 1963
A few years before I was born but my father has told me about this. He was living on the coast in Devon at the time.
Remember it well, it started snowing on new years eve, and in the morning the cat disappeared under the snow, the snow was banked up in heaps until March, today they would not be able to cope with such snow at all.
I was 9 in1963. We just loved all the snow! Frozen school milk. Snow halfway up the back door and yet my mam reckoned 1947 was worse !!!
If this happened today, people would be phoning the emergency services to enquire which McDonald's were still open.
People just got on with it, if you had no milk delivery you walked to the nearest dairy.
Brought up in a house with no central heating you were used to cold, but ice six feet thick, that was something else.
It made me shudder seeing that gentleman put candles next to the net curtains.
We spent weeks sledging it was great
I was 6 years old, remember my dad going mental, having to pull me out of the igloo the bigger kids had made me go inside to check it out. Had numb bum for days.
I was born during ‘the big snow’.
Well my husband was born in 1947 and his parents said it was bad but I remember 1963 I was 13 and walked to school everyday we where never off school and the snowdrifts were high I live in north east of England it made us hardy not soft
I was born in September 63, do you think there's any connection?
😁
😂
Was it late September.Back in 63. I remember what a night..
Now that's FREEZING temperatures for ya right there I wouldn't had been outside at all I'll be in the house warm
In late February 2018 we had pretty ferocious cold, just for a week! Look at the trouble THAT caused-now imagine if it lasted ten times longer-that was Winter 1962/3
We couldn't get out our front door, and the downstairs windows were have covered with the lovely snow. We loved it, but our folks were not impressed, Here in Blackburn, east Lancashire.
Remember it well.
So sad we can’t have this today !! Could you imagine the blame game ?? Today’s namby pamby society would collapse. I can recall tobogganing out of first floor bedroom windows and being towed on a sledge nearly a mile to the nearest bus stop so as to get to school. Now schools are shut at the slightest hint of snow - pathetic!!
That was when men was still allowed to have firm erections.
The EU banned them.
Probably so that they (Gates, Soros & Co) could sell Viagra.
Are you that ignorant? So many people died during the Big Freeze.
I left school in 63 and travelled on a bike to work. The canals froze over and you could walk on the three inch thick ice.
Did anybody else live at Princetown then?
Remember it well, so cold the flame on my lighter froze... 😢 😮 😅
I turned 2 that winter. Along with my older brother who was 5, both of us had to stay at home. No school for him. We had a coal fired boiler in our house.
The presumption now is that this unusual cold weather was caused by a volcanic eruption in Hawaii.
There was no major eruption in Hawaii that year. Besides, these are effusive volcanos. The spew relatively little ash into the air as the lava is highly viscous
@@boxsterman77 I did say presumed, so it was clearly an incorrect theory, which was believed to be the case. Remember this was the early sixties and metrology and volcanology were not as good as they are today. Besides a major eruption only has to happen in the previous year, to cause problems.
People helped one another and people went to work as best they could. We didn't have central heating, fitted carpets or double glazing but we coped. When I read about the numbskulls putting porridge on the busts in museums ... I have to shake my head in dismay...how would these fools cope ?
I've got the full version of this, but it isn't as good quality as this one.
10th of February? it snowed for ten weeks I know I worked through it .
I was at school and do go home every weekend and I left school in 1963.
The Thames used to freeze over in the 19th century. We will likely see a December/January day reach 25C in the next 20 years.
And before 1500 we experienced temperatures to rival the south of France for a few hundred years.... Must've been all those medieval factories and cars that they had
My dad was out helping,I was too young to remember..
I remember this, I was 8years young 😂😂
I could do with a winter like this.
I remember this as I was 8 and we had to walk to school bbbrrrrr
All the snowflakes would melt now a days.
At 18 months old I threw my blanket on the electric bar heater that my parents were using to keep me warm. The resulting fire could have killed me. Was rescued after screeming and fire was contained to the small box room by local fire brigade.
It'll be like that every winter if/when the AMOC shuts down.
Paradise we can only wish for 💯😎
Huh
If you google it, you will find that 1947 was the worst Winter, although 1963 was very bad. It snowed for over 55 days with no let up.
I walked on the River Thames with my parents at Walton-on-Thames
I was 10 and helped my father dig a trench across the street to get to our neighbors across the road...but as my father was a coal miner we had a big supply of miners concessionary coal in the coal hole,
The worst winters I can remember were Mike and Bernie
Not to mention Shelley...
I'd never heard of ice yachting before.
I was 11 years old. I was 1 mile from granny's house. I had to fire up her coal fire. Took me and hour to get there. The snow was higher than me.
Most importantly, were there toilet rolls on the shelves?
Just goes to show(?) the iconic steam train is an amazing piece of kit, and if this were to happen again a good infrastructure of railways could keep everybody surviving for some time.
It does for certain show that due to our lives being so easy in the modern developed nation of today, we're bombarded by utter BS that really doesn't matter, but yet society as a whole gets so irrationally irritated by it.
Who used toilet rolls in '63? Squares of newspaper, if you were lucky you had a bit of "Andy Cap" to pass the time. You did'nt stop long as it was a bit chilly in the outside lav.
@@Valeman7689 soo...?
And I bet they made the best of it instead of complaining about not being able to get to work!
Born this year, no wonder l hate the cold
Yes I can
Without a doubt the harshest winter in living memory. ..Due to global warming, we will never see another winter as harsh as this again in the UK.
Just as well because IF we did we would be screwed.
Where were the eco warriors 😂😂
They said the world was going to end 1960
Am from north Newcastle
1960 was totally cold freezing always
Winter for months
But always had a white Christmas ❤
Great happiness
Golden years back then 1960
Great England ❤❤
Ps
We still have the eco warriors 2024 😂😂😂
Reminds me of COVID since no one went to school for 2 months then.
It was still school 😂 you had to do classes online
People today would not cope with a serious bad winter because they are to soft
We are witnessing a normal change in the earths cycle. Cilmate change but look around thr world. The equator has remained much unchanged its the north and south hemispheres where the changes are noticeable. Wind directions are changing, bringing different weather pattens . And so much more.
The worst winters ,not 47 or 63,,Mike and bernie ,absolutely terrible ,,how bad bernie replaced Mike with a dog 😮
It was nothing for a steam train but the country would stop today with leaves on the line God help us.
0O:10 Ten seconds in
What is the 10'th of "Febually"?
No hysterical climate alarmism from the BBC back then!
Yes ! but we did get to school 😝... My ( late ) mother was SO upset that the snow had not completely thawed by March , she went out into the garden with our hosepipe to melt it ... sort of worked ( ? ) ............ DAVE™🛑
Now we have weather modification. aerosol sprays from 30,000 ft.
Particulate sun blocking and HARRP.