I was 7 and we lived in a big house no radiators in those days me and my brothers were sent out to the old factory to fill the buckets with slag, to make a fire, it was bitter outside toilet, then 23 in 1962, with two small children in a top council flat just one fireplace, my husband had to walk to the hospital as no buses could run, a wonderful coal man came with his cart and climbed up the flats where there were babies, the ice were were inside the windows,bitterly cold,I am 83 now but remember those two winters well, with the country how it is now no one would work, no benefits in our era, thank you for reminding me what we went through, if it happened again I dread to think what the layabouts of today would do,we have radiators in every room, double glazed windows they the youngest generation would not know how to cope, thank you for your films of the two worse winters I can remember 👍🏻🇬🇧🇬🇧
I was born in 55. I remember the 63 snow, my dad was tarmacking roads, and had no work cos of the snow. Ten weeks he was out of work, we lived in a terraced house with our grandparents. Two rooms up is all we had...there were coal fires in them tho we were poor . I remember house being warm, mayb cos we all little, 3 of us soon to go in five of us.in two rooms . Only tiny fires Other rooms but kitchen as they called it had the bigger fire ,Tho eaked it out sum days. Better days than now, more simpler , Xmas was better , exciting, tho not much toys. Your 83 well done,my mum's now 90. Not to good tho, merry Christmas to u from London 👍
I was born 1940, we were squatting in a tenement in Scotland. I remember having the worst chilblains. Mum used to rub snow on them, to try to calm them down ! I also remember crying with the cold! We were used to having really harsh winters in scotland. Mind you now live in Somerset, but I don’t seem to feel the cold too much!
In 1947 I walked to my junior school via a hand shovelled path (nearly 2 miles) and the snow was piled higher than me. All this in shorts and I experienced the dreaded chaps on the front of my thighs. It was a very cold winter and for fuel we had to trudge up the local gasworks and forage for Coke (not sniffing kind) and trundle it home in home-made wooden carts fitted with old pram wheels, In 1962 I helped my father-in-law (a farmer) deliver his milk churns to the milk processing factory (20 miles away), sitting on the pack of an open trailer (behind a tractor) wearing an ex-airmen's flying suit. Approaching Shoreham there was a relatively straight piece of road that ended in an almost right-angle bend and several cars didn't make it and plowed straight on into a boggy frozen field. Happy days. Both are great videos BTW!
Thank you for this, it raises so many emotions. My mum found out in the October of 46 that she was carrying me, I was born at the end of April 47. My dad did the honorable thing and they got married not the ceremony a girl dreams of, but a necessity back then! They had the additional expense of renting rooms as their parents couldn't keep them, my dad worked 12 hour shifts as a machine tool fitter at the time and came home at 7pm, washed shaved and after a bite of food went back out to an evening job from 8pm til midnight. Yes, they were hard times, but they had a long and happy marriage. I'm so proud of them both for many reasons, especially the sacrifices they made so that I might have not just a life, but a good one.
Today some people are so weak that they feel the need to change the language in some books as so not to offend and upset these Lilly liverered types! No spunk in them as it used to be said!
I remember 1947 winter. I was 8 years old and just loved all the snow! My Mum must have struggled to cope, with us living in an old cottage with no running water, electric or gas! Just a range fire with an oven. She had to boil buckets of snow for water, as the tap by our gate, froze, as did the pump a quarter of a mile away! It must have been a hard slog for her, but we kids had no notion of that. Tobogganing down a steep field was huge fun!
As I said on the 1963 video I was eleven in 1947.. my father who had been gassed in WW1 Was driving a lorry, or trying too in really bad conditions. It was a very hard time and we all had to pitch in and help out. .. children included. A different breed back then. There was a sense of adventure.. all that snow on the local park was amazing fun.
I remember the winter of 1963, I was seven years old. The massive snowdrifts in this video look very much the same as those in our village back in 63. My mum often spoke of the terrible winter in 1947 and how hard it was for people. Everything permanently frozen and very little heating in people's homes. People were hardy in those days and used to going without in times of difficulty.
I was 8 . In London . Hard times people were hardy then .it was make do and mend . When I look back we never had much like today's world, they been given it all but , altho I wud of liked a bit more we were poor , I would rather go back there than today's world of greed and money. People were mor friendly, your neighbours spoke. It was simpler way of life. Nono of this technology and social media crap. I've always worked hard not like today's youth. Lazy ,don't want to work or do anything..their parents have made them like that. They want it all given to them.meeru Christmas 2023 🎅🎄
@@beverlygannon4141 Yes kids today certainly have it a lot easier than we did. Most people have more comfortable lives which is a good thing. I grew up in a village community where everyone helped each other, people were more caring and tolerant back then. Everyone is so paranoid and aggressive these days and turn everything into an argument. Compared to todays youth we had so little yet we had so much. I have no regrets growing up when I did. Better times.
what I remember about 1946/7 snow, people cleared the snow of pavements to the side of the road, spaces were left open through the snow walls to cross the road I was 3 years and all the snow was taller than me.. 1962/3 I remember clearing the snow outside the shop I worked in to get into the shop to open the door, it was a busy newsagent we opened at 6 am so we had to get in early to clear the way for shoppers. If I remember rightly most of the newspapers got through, we sold hundreds of morning papers. Thanks Collin remembering these times got the little grey cells working.
Really interesting to read. My Mother told me of the 'snow walls' at the side of the road and the spaces left open in them in 1947. I can just remember the winter of 1962/3.....whatever would they do nowadays?
I was born in May 1947. My mother told me it snowed in May and was one of the worst winters she had seen. When I was a child I saw some hard winters. I have seen snow as high as the telegraph posts. My sisters and I had to walk three miles across fields in several feet of snow to get to school. A good time to be alive though.
I remember that winter very well. We lived in the country, the roads were blocked with snow, I couldn't go to school (hurrah!). A train was supposed to be getting through with food supplies. Dad fixed a wooden box to my sledge and we made our way to the station, about half a mile away. It didn't get through that day, we had to go back the following day - success that time. As kids we thought it was fun but not so good as the snow eventually melted and dead sheep were found under snow drifts. That was the way life was back then. Did it make us tougher, probably.
The best take away from this video upload is the comments from all the older folk who share their memories of this and 1963. Colin, you have made a lot of people happy with this trip down memory lane.
I was born on the 28th of December 1947 so I have no memory of it - Thank goodness! However, my memories of 1962/3 remain vivid as though they were yesterday, BRRRHHH!! But we soldiered on through it all and yet these days a couple of inches of snow almost brings the country to a halt!
I was born in March 1947 at home , 2 months premature. I weighed 3lbs! Between the snow and my size it was too dangerous to try to get me to hospital. I was kept at home until June when I reached 5lbs. So that makes me a miracle baby who is now 77 years of age.
A very beautiful memory. Although people today complain that those days were very hard, well we did not know any better, we were very happy and more carefree, we knew how to enjoy life to the full with little or no money to get by on, but I don't mind telling everyone, I would swap the life I have today with the life I once had way back in the 1950s and 60s in the blink of my eyes, yes I would.
I do like to think that even today there are some people still around who would muck in in such conditions for the better good. Governments can hardly be blamed for such conditions although back in the day local councils got workers out of bed at 2am to clear paths and roads to enable a few services. Now unfortunately they do not have the man power. More and more council tax and less and less service another sign of the times, mother nature is not alone it seems. Again a great post thank you.
Would today's generation cope? Have doubts? Me too! I was born in May 47 when it snowed . . . in May. Remember 63, bedroom windows iced up inside the house. Our bedding a couple of "Army blankets" and coats of any description on top. Like most ordinary working class kids going to School, the classroom was a relief, we had heating there.
Such a fantastic video, Colin. Full of interesting information and very powerful images of a winter like no other. I lived through the horrendous winter of 1962-63. This winter looked even worse! Such resilience, courage and community spirit shown by these strong individuals. There was even humour! Nothing will beat the working class spirit and determination. Thanks for the post! 👍
When I see pictures like these I think of farmers searching for sheep buried in snow hard times for these farmers and still happening in mountainous and hill areas hard work
Wow I need to take stock I am such a wuss and soft I thought id experienced cold I was born in 72 my dear beloved mother and all other parents born in 1933 or before and who were around to experience both of those winters and I never knew she lived through both I knew 1 but not the other they were made of strong stuff to survive that and went to bed with no food and after experiencing the wars too I take my hat off to the older generation I thought I had it thought I don't know any suffering really do I God bless and I'm sorry for being so selfish 😱🥵
I arrived from India in late September 1946 as a baby, and I turned so blue in the cold rain in Liverpool that a kind lady gave mum a blanket for me. I don’t think I ever got over it. I hated the cold, and I remember thinking after cycling miles to my apprenticeship in Birmingham in 1962 that I was done with cold weather. I got married in 1972 and left for Australia in the same week. I have been here ever since.
if this happened now the people we have now would never cope. because they are not hardy enough to deal with this. those were some much tougher than ones we have today
I was 7 years old but still remember 1947, tunnelling our way through the snow drifts to the local shop a quarter mile away, there was no central heating then, coal fire and lucky for us my dad was a miner so we got free coal to heat saucepans of water on the stove to pour in the tin bath we all shared 1 after the other cleanest first. No much on the roads in them days, milk was delivered by the farmer by horse and cart. Looking back they must have been hard times but we didn't complain and I maintain my belief. My life's journey through the last 82 years has been the best this planet has and will experience.
My next door neighbour told me about the big freeze 1947. Herefordshire, they couldn't get a spade in the ground until August. People were still on Rationing too.
I have a picture of my mum in a rowing boat at Gloucester Cathedral after the thaw of the 1947 winter. She was with the Red Cross delivering aid parcels!
I remember it well, particularly the floods that followed the thaw. Water from the river Trent flooded such a large area that it joined the Witham at Lincoln. Luckily our house was above flood level, but there was water at the end of the road. Some neighbours has a small dinghy, and brought it along to sail over the fields.
My sister Pam was born in February 47 and my Dad and Nanna went to visit they went up a hill towards nunthorpe nursing home in York they were holding on to each other and slipped in all the snow and both went down together ,they couldn’t get up for laughing and arrived at the nursing home wet through . Happy memories.
We lived in Warrington Road, West side of Newcastle. I can remember the banked up snow still lying, unmelted, on the sides of the road in the June of that terrible winter.
Another great collection Colin. I was 6 YOA in 62-3 and do remember it being the worst snow that I have seen. From a young boy's perspective it was great being able to have fun on a sledge and create wonderful long slides and have endless fun on them. Although I was too young to know what it was like elsewhere across the UK in 63, but I am sure there were deep snow drifts in some parts of the country, but in Gateshead where I was at the time the snow was 'only'2 or 3 feet or so, and I am sure I still got to school which was about a mile away. In that sense, and from the photos you have here I would say 1947 must have been far worse and it was much more common to have 3 or 4 foot of show in the forties and fifties I would think !
I was six years old and remember it well. When I opened our back door there was a solid wall of snow and we later built an igloo in the garden - just big enough for a six year old! One thing which we forget is that the country ran on coal. All power stations, factories and houses depended on it. Most houses cooked on gas which was made from coal but not only were the railways out of action but the massive coal heaps at the collieries were frozen solid. All this came just after World War 2 and the recession which that caused, but were we miserable ? - too right we were.
I started school in ‘47. The snow is all I can remember of ‘47. The earliest instances I can remember were the doodle bugs and the air raid sirens, the Anderson Shelters and Mrs Tovell’s basement flat where we all used to congregate during the air raids. Eventually, l discovered that the war was at last over and I was very worried and frightened because I thought that meant that life was over and we all going to die (or something) and was all unfair. - I hadn’t known a life without war. I was born in 1941 on Lord Rotheschilds estate in Tring and very soon after, a few weeks later, we returned to London, Number 126, Tulse Hill and then,less than a week later, we moved to Streatham and a day or two afterwards 126 Tulse Hill took a direct hit from a German thousand pounder leaving just a hole in the ground. A few days earlier and my whole life would have been just a few days and “my whole world just my mother’s arms” like the doomed bastard child of in Tess of the d’ Urbervilles (and along with many, many a poor infant in war torn London at that time.) Sometime later I was taken to see No. 126 Tulse Hill and there it was -just a hole in the ground, surrounded by the chain link fencing of wartime London - but didn’t really register with me at that time but I’m still standing.
In 1947 I was 2 years old so can't remember it, but I do remember 1962-1963 .....Yes people were a lot more resilient then, we didn't moan about everything, just got on with life, didn't expect someone else to sort things out, and didn't blame the government for everything, we took responsibility for our own lives, people were a lot more mature then and not wingers like today's generation.
Yes! I remember the 1947 winter snow. My father had to dig 6 foot of snow to get out of the front door so that my sister could get out. She was a WRN , wartime navy and had to walk to the docks. Took her hours to get there! Told off for being late!!
I was 5 years old and I remember the huge banks of snow along the side of the road as I was taken to school. That was in a wee village called Skelmorlie on the Clyde Coast.
glamrock58 Nice film, I recognize the policeman you featured in the photo who was my first boss when I joined the civil service in 1971. He told me he gave up being a policeman after 1963 because he was fed up of being out in the cold. Ironically his name was Jack Frost.
I was two years old my brother lifted me up to see the snow covered most off our house my first memory my my mum wrapped all in blankets with a hot brick in our beds she heated on the open fire no e
I remember six-foot drifts against the door, and digging yourself out in the late 70's and spinning the car against a drift against a tree and rocking it 30 minutes to get it out in the 80's, so I could get into work. I remember going out starting the car, leaving it running for 20 minutes - this is back when you could just lock the car doors as it was running, and who would steal a car under a snow drift, who would be out? and you went back in to watch TV until you had a chance or seeing anything through the windscreen - this of course is before heated windscreens... Bad weather is not new...
I made a comment on your other video of the 1962-63 winter which I did not experience as I left England in 1958 but I do remember well the 1947 winter living in Cheltenham.
I was there.... remember my grandfather had to store the milk churns in the deep snow drifts because the lorry could not collect them. Snow too deep to sledge but built some enormous snowmen.
I was born March 1945 Birmingham., I remember the first snowfall, abput a foot of snow then trodden down by the people passing by. It then froze solid. My mum went out to go to a nearby shop but slipped and fell breaking 3 ribs. More snow ensued, it was really quiet. Normally there was lots of traffic being across the road from Morris Commercial factory. It seemed ages before the city came back to normality. Didn't stop dad from getting to the pub on the corner though.
I worked with young people who had never driven on snow and when we had a slight dusting one winter morning they did not turn up for work. I was seven in 1963. Back in the day, we used to get at least one quite bad fall of snow during the winter and I frequently had to drive 12 miles to work on bad roads. The journey included two long hills. It was a bit hairy but I always made it there and back. Health and safety was practically non-existent in those days.
@@amandaduggan9051 In the 70s we had heavy snow alot in the northeast of England now a few inches and people panick it's funny how people have changed.
My father told me that as no one could get to work where we lived, the local council employed all the local fit men to dig out roads so that we could be reconnected to the rest of the country!
I was born in the January of 1947 and in those days new mothers were expected to have a ”lying in” time ( in bed) for ten days after the birth. She said that she felt very fortunate because that meant other people would have to brave the cold to do the shopping.
Another world back then...people looked out for each other....not now ....1962 63 that weather came from Hawaii....i remember 78 into 79 that was bad walking to school through the drifts.not now school are closed for half inch of snow....
Born 1947 january ,giving birth found she was carrying twins ,no wahing machine ,disposable nappies outdoor loo, wonder how they would cope these days😮😮😮😮
My parents told me about this winter; imagine this with no central heating or double glazing! My grandmothers would be up first to get all the coal fires lit, and the best way to get dressed was to sleep with your next day's clothes in the bed so that they would get warm, and then change from night clothes in the morning under the covers.
I was born in febuary of this year older siblings and parents told me how bad it was not just the snow but getting food and coal because nothing could move , but todays x gens think we had life easy no we worked and saved for what we wanted
Remember I was ten had chicken pox really cold snowed n no school just stew to eat. But I survived just get on with it. No benefits then and whining like the young of today
3:51 Little boys in short trousers in the snow, makes your eyes water don’t it? Good video, but 1947 was a freak year. The summer was hot, for the same reason the winter was harsh, ie no westerlies but east winds instead. That could happen now. It’s because of a breakdown of normal circulation and pressure systems.
1047 I remember that Mr Rayment fought his way through the snow drifts to get to the village to bring back bread for all of us. Snow drifts just up the road were over 12 feet high. The kerbs and footpaths were damaged by the snow plough and were still like that 20 years later.
I was seven in 1947 and remember that winter well, we had an inside toilet upstairs but it froze solid and couldn't be flushed - luckily the sewer part was still working so we could get a bucket of water after we'd done our business to flush it away. The insides of the windows in my bedroom were thick with ice in the mornings. All we had for heating was one coal fire in the front room downstairs which didn't do anything for heating the house - all we got was thick smoke blowing back into the room from the poor quality coal - if we could get any that is. And the bathroom washbasin froze solid so we couldn't wash our faces when we got up. Food was very poor quality, meat was so tough it was full of gristle, my Mum had to queue for ages with ration books to get anything - even rotten potatoes. Mum reused wool from old jumpers and knitted socks and a jumper for me, Dad was working two jobs and any part time work he could get as well. Very hard times but we just got on with it.
If this weather happened today we would all die cos we know longer have coal fires and we cant afford to keep warm ,cos of the way we are being herded and ruled and told what we can and can't have
During the 62/63 cold snap I was 10 years old and the school toilets were outside, I cannot remember having a day off from school because of the cold snow and ice or the general conditions. We had no central heating and only one coal fire at home and in the morning when we got up for school ice was on the inside of the windows. I suppose we accepted it and people just went to work, sometimes was better to walk than wait in cold for a bus.
Obviously it was different for parts of UK, Whether you had employment etc. How did we cope? Well i' is not like we lived in tropics, prior. Blood was thicker, in veins, to deal with it. Obvious also, the need for fuel to keep warm. People burned coal mainly. Life was built for it. The snow-bound fells were different from suburbia While not alive for '47 ... In '63 and of course my parents were there in '47 No matter what part of UK we had to adapt. In suburbs my dad insulated the water in roof tank and hung the old black-out material up to stop draughts... you know? Stuff... was done.. Hot water bottles with extra clothing were normal It is always cyclical and driven by our sun through electricity, electro-magnetism and cosmic rays [protons] All connect to our upper atmosphere and drive our weather hot and cold.
Oh god lord help the young today if it happened again, i can remember the winter of 63/64 as if it was yesterday, i can remember having to go about 2 miles to the coal wharf to get a pram of coal so we could have a fire and hot water, must have took me and my mates 4 hours, but it was normal to do things like that in those days, you all mucked in and did what was expected.
That was when Haarp and chemtrails never igsisted and in them times that's when UK had decent summers and propper decent cold winters and better quality of air with no chemicals sprayed in the skies like we see now and why you don't get propper seasons and that's how winter should always be -20 below zero during the day and when summer should always be warm like Italy
My parents always told me about 1947, my father was waiting to be demobbed after serving in WW11 he was sent to help trains buried in the snow drifts. I wasn’t born to the early fifties so missed that one, however is there a pattern emerging 1947-1963-1979 both 16 years apart, maybe just a coincidence.
Yes look at that you see it was worse winters back in the day and every one got on with it and helped shovel it away as best they could and everyone helped each other , oh and NOT !! One word of climate change ,odd that isn't it ,these pictures are great archive's 👍 pictures , and the frozen lakes/rivers 😀
Everyone was tobogganing on Duppas Hill. Eventually they bought me one : a great cumbersome thing it was, not like the sleek metal sleds everyone else had. But it was too late, the snow had started dispersing and I never used it it got stuck in the garden shed never to be taken out again
How was the winter of 1947 coped with? I was 4, and we lived near Manchester. The country had just come out of World War 2, and major bombardment of British industrial cities, by the Luftwaffe. Rationing - food, clothing, fuel (coal, gasoline, ... ), etc., was still in full effect. It would finally be lifted in 1954, nine years after the war 'ended'! So - the bombing had stopped; demobilization was in progress, veterans returning. Severe cold on top of that was by comparison with wartime, a minor inconvenience! But that winter seemed much colder than my first far colder Canadian midwestern winter, 19 years later. Buildings there are simply more realistically insulated than those even in modern Britain.
I lived in a mining village we did not get electricity until 1948 so power was not a problem, we did have a radio ran on wet batteries. there was plenty of coal so heating was not a problem, we lived close to farm and got our milk and spuds I do not remember ever going without food, mam made our bread we had home made Jam (blackberry) made our butter from the farm cream. so for a 12 year old life was OK
Winters like this happen in many many countries even in the modern age. This is "normal" for many people in many countries. So long as you have a well stocked provisions of dried and tinned foods and a house which can be kept warm and dry (fuel) then you will be okay for three months.
A lot of forecasters are expecting a colder than average coming this year - i.e. Dec '23 & Jan/Feb '24. Caused by El Nino, or a change in the polar vortex. Let's see.
Dose.t anyone like the winters of 1947 and 1963? I wish every winters are like those. Those were the real winters of uk, when there was no global warming.
The only year I remember that school was closed. Horse-drawn makeshift snow plows were used to try and clear streets so that coal and food could be delivered. This was followed by severe flooding in and around Nottingham, Derby, etc. I had to trudge down to the local gas plant a few times to get a bag of coke, which was the only fuel we could get to try and heat the house. In 1963, I was in the RAF and spent that winter digging out wherever we were sent. Both winters were pretty bad.
All the nonsense going around about how the current generation wouldn't be able to cope. We coped because we had no other choice and today's young people would too if things happened again. Fortunately they won't ever have to.
I was 7 and we lived in a big house no radiators in those days me and my brothers were sent out to the old factory to fill the buckets with slag, to make a fire, it was bitter outside toilet, then 23 in 1962, with two small children in a top council flat just one fireplace, my husband had to walk to the hospital as no buses could run, a wonderful coal man came with his cart and climbed up the flats where there were babies, the ice were were inside the windows,bitterly cold,I am 83 now but remember those two winters well, with the country how it is now no one would work, no benefits in our era, thank you for reminding me what we went through, if it happened again I dread to think what the layabouts of today would do,we have radiators in every room, double glazed windows they the youngest generation would not know how to cope, thank you for your films of the two worse winters I can remember 👍🏻🇬🇧🇬🇧
Well done wishing you many yrs health and happiness ❤
Thanks for your memories. I'm going to have to research what is slag, that you used to make a fire!
Getting coke from Croydon Gasometer in Purley Way
Toboganning on Duppas Hill.
I expected that to be possible every year - but, of course it wasn’t
I was born in 55. I remember the 63 snow, my dad was tarmacking roads, and had no work cos of the snow. Ten weeks he was out of work, we lived in a terraced house with our grandparents. Two rooms up is all we had...there were coal fires in them tho we were poor . I remember house being warm, mayb cos we all little, 3 of us soon to go in five of us.in two rooms . Only tiny fires Other rooms but kitchen as they called it had the bigger fire ,Tho eaked it out sum days. Better days than now, more simpler , Xmas was better , exciting, tho not much toys. Your 83 well done,my mum's now 90. Not to good tho, merry Christmas to u from London 👍
I was born 1940, we were squatting in a tenement in Scotland. I remember having the worst chilblains. Mum used to rub snow on them, to try to calm them down ! I also remember crying with the cold! We were used to having really harsh winters in scotland. Mind you now live in Somerset, but I don’t seem to feel the cold too much!
In 1947 I walked to my junior school via a hand shovelled path (nearly 2 miles) and the snow was piled higher than me. All this in shorts and I experienced the dreaded chaps on the front of my thighs. It was a very cold winter and for fuel we had to trudge up the local gasworks and forage for Coke (not sniffing kind) and trundle it home in home-made wooden carts fitted with old pram wheels,
In 1962 I helped my father-in-law (a farmer) deliver his milk churns to the milk processing factory (20 miles away), sitting on the pack of an open trailer (behind a tractor) wearing an ex-airmen's flying suit. Approaching Shoreham there was a relatively straight piece of road that ended in an almost right-angle bend and several cars didn't make it and plowed straight on into a boggy frozen field. Happy days. Both are great videos BTW!
Thank you for this, it raises so many emotions.
My mum found out in the October of 46 that she was carrying me, I was born at the end of April 47.
My dad did the honorable thing and they got married not the ceremony a girl dreams of, but a necessity back then!
They had the additional expense of renting rooms as their parents couldn't keep them, my dad worked 12 hour shifts as a machine tool fitter at the time and came home at 7pm, washed shaved and after a bite of food went back out to an evening job from 8pm til midnight.
Yes, they were hard times, but they had a long and happy marriage.
I'm so proud of them both for many reasons, especially the sacrifices they made so that I might have not just a life, but a good one.
well done to ya mum and dad , hard workers. Not like now 👍❤️❤️
Theracles, thankfully we have our sweet memories to help us get through what I consider these far worse times of today.
Thank you for your post wonderful to hear your story take Care.
Fantastic video,no doubt the people were stronger mentally and physically than they are now.
Thank you
Cheers Buckhold glad you enjoyed they were stronger back then and just got on and did there best
Today some people are so weak that they feel the need to change the language in some books as so not to offend and upset these Lilly liverered types! No spunk in them as it used to be said!
@@davidkennedy8929 Goes without saying that.
Different people in many ways but tough as nails
agree
That was the year my grandmother died. My mum was 13 at the time .
Imagine if we had weather like this now the media would be hysterical.
I remember 1947 winter. I was 8 years old and just loved all the snow! My Mum must have struggled to cope, with us living in an old cottage with no running water, electric or gas! Just a range fire with an oven. She had to boil buckets of snow for water, as the tap by our gate, froze, as did the pump a quarter of a mile away! It must have been a hard slog for her, but we kids had no notion of that. Tobogganing down a steep field was huge fun!
As I said on the 1963 video I was eleven in 1947.. my father who had been gassed in WW1
Was driving a lorry, or trying too in really bad conditions.
It was a very hard time and we all had to pitch in and help out.
.. children included. A different breed back then. There was a sense of adventure.. all that snow on the local park was amazing fun.
I remember the winter of 1963, I was seven years old. The massive snowdrifts in this video look very much the same as those in our village back in 63. My mum often spoke of the terrible winter in 1947 and how hard it was for people. Everything permanently frozen and very little heating in people's homes. People were hardy in those days and used to going without in times of difficulty.
Hard working people ❤
I was 8 . In London . Hard times people were hardy then
.it was make do and mend . When I look back we never had much like today's world, they been given it all but , altho I wud of liked a bit more we were poor , I would rather go back there than today's world of greed and money. People were mor friendly, your neighbours spoke. It was simpler way of life. Nono of this technology and social media crap. I've always worked hard not like today's youth. Lazy ,don't want to work or do anything..their parents have made them like that. They want it all given to them.meeru Christmas 2023 🎅🎄
@@beverlygannon4141 Yes kids today certainly have it a lot easier than we did. Most people have more comfortable lives which is a good thing. I grew up in a village community where everyone helped each other, people were more caring and tolerant back then. Everyone is so paranoid and aggressive these days and turn everything into an argument. Compared to todays youth we had so little yet we had so much. I have no regrets growing up when I did. Better times.
what I remember about 1946/7 snow, people cleared the snow of pavements to the side of the road, spaces were left open through the snow walls to cross the road I was 3 years and all the snow was taller than me.. 1962/3 I remember clearing the snow outside the shop I worked in to get into the shop to open the door, it was a busy newsagent we opened at 6 am so we had to get in early to clear the way for shoppers. If I remember rightly most of the newspapers got through, we sold hundreds of morning papers. Thanks Collin remembering these times got the little grey cells working.
Really interesting to read. My Mother told me of the 'snow walls' at the side of the road and the spaces left open in them in 1947. I can just remember the winter of 1962/3.....whatever would they do nowadays?
I was born in May 1947. My mother told me it snowed in May and was one of the worst winters she had seen. When I was a child I saw some hard winters. I have seen snow as high as the telegraph posts. My sisters and I had to walk three miles across fields in several feet of snow to get to school. A good time to be alive though.
I remember that winter very well. We lived in the country, the roads were blocked with snow, I couldn't go to school (hurrah!). A train was supposed to be getting through with food supplies. Dad fixed a wooden box to my sledge and we made our way to the station, about half a mile away. It didn't get through that day, we had to go back the following day - success that time. As kids we thought it was fun but not so good as the snow eventually melted and dead sheep were found under snow drifts. That was the way life was back then. Did it make us tougher, probably.
Hard times buti would say it made a man out of u we live in a totally different world today
The best take away from this video upload is the comments from all the older folk who share their memories of this and 1963. Colin, you have made a lot of people happy with this trip down memory lane.
I was born on the 28th of December 1947 so I have no memory of it - Thank goodness! However, my memories of 1962/3 remain vivid as though they were yesterday, BRRRHHH!! But we soldiered on through it all and yet these days a couple of inches of snow almost brings the country to a halt!
I was born in March 1947 at home , 2 months premature. I weighed 3lbs! Between the snow and my size it was too dangerous to try to get me to hospital. I was kept at home until June when I reached 5lbs. So that makes me a miracle baby who is now 77 years of age.
We remember opening the door to our house to a wall of snow and had to shovel the snow into the house so that we could get out !
I was born 1/2/47 in Wakefield, and the snow was up to the window cills. My mother told me !
A very beautiful memory. Although people today complain that those days were very hard, well we did not know any better, we were very happy and more carefree, we knew how to enjoy life to the full with little or no money to get by on, but I don't mind telling everyone, I would swap the life I have today with the life I once had way back in the 1950s and 60s in the blink of my eyes, yes I would.
Wonderful to read your comment Norman I would go back Hard times but great times.
I was born 2 days after Christmas Day in 1947 and often think how my poor Mum got through it, sadly she passed when i became four years old.
I do like to think that even today there are some people still around who would muck in in such conditions for the better good. Governments can hardly be blamed for such conditions although back in the day local councils got workers out of bed at 2am to clear paths and roads to enable a few services. Now unfortunately they do not have the man power. More and more council tax and less and less service another sign of the times, mother nature is not alone it seems. Again a great post thank you.
I recognise the one street with critchleys sweet shop we used to pop in on the way to school cracking video.
Would today's generation cope? Have doubts? Me too! I was born in May 47 when it snowed . . . in May. Remember 63, bedroom windows iced up inside the house. Our bedding a couple of "Army blankets" and coats of any description on top. Like most ordinary working class kids going to School, the classroom was a relief, we had heating there.
Such a fantastic video, Colin. Full of interesting information and very powerful images of a winter like no other. I lived through the horrendous winter of 1962-63. This winter looked even worse! Such resilience, courage and community spirit shown by these strong individuals. There was even humour! Nothing will beat the working class spirit and determination. Thanks for the post! 👍
Thank you Chasidah I wonder if we had a winter like this now what would happen.
When I see pictures like these I think of farmers searching for sheep buried in snow hard times for these farmers and still happening in mountainous and hill areas hard work
Wow I need to take stock I am such a wuss and soft I thought id experienced cold I was born in 72 my dear beloved mother and all other parents born in 1933 or before and who were around to experience both of those winters and I never knew she lived through both I knew 1 but not the other they were made of strong stuff to survive that and went to bed with no food and after experiencing the wars too I take my hat off to the older generation I thought I had it thought I don't know any suffering really do I God bless and I'm sorry for being so selfish 😱🥵
I arrived from India in late September 1946 as a baby, and I turned so blue in the cold rain in Liverpool that a kind lady gave mum a blanket for me. I don’t think I ever got over it. I hated the cold, and I remember thinking after cycling miles to my apprenticeship in Birmingham in 1962 that I was done with cold weather. I got married in 1972 and left for Australia in the same week. I have been here ever since.
if this happened now the people we have now would never cope. because they are not hardy enough to deal with this. those were some much tougher than ones we have today
Spot on Anthony.
👍👌
I was 7 years old but still remember 1947, tunnelling our way through the snow drifts to the local shop a quarter mile away, there was no central heating then, coal fire and lucky for us my dad was a miner so we got free coal to heat saucepans of water on the stove to pour in the tin bath we all shared 1 after the other cleanest first. No much on the roads in them days, milk was delivered by the farmer by horse and cart. Looking back they must have been hard times but we didn't complain and I maintain my belief. My life's journey through the last 82 years has been the best this planet has and will experience.
Fair play tough times
My next door neighbour told me about the big freeze 1947.
Herefordshire, they couldn't get a spade in the ground until August.
People were still on Rationing too.
I have a picture of my mum in a rowing boat at Gloucester Cathedral after the thaw of the 1947 winter. She was with the Red Cross delivering aid parcels!
I remember it well, particularly the floods that followed the thaw. Water from the river Trent flooded such a large area that it joined the Witham at Lincoln. Luckily our house was above flood level, but there was water at the end of the road. Some neighbours has a small dinghy, and brought it along to sail over the fields.
People didn't wait for the council , everyone out with a shovel, ashes
My father rip told me about how he shoveled snow every day for days on end and he reckoned they never seemed to get anywhere there was that much snow.
I was born in the winter of 1947 my mother told me many things about how bad it was.
Great video thanks.
I'm sitting here shivering looking at all that snow.
Your probably shivering cos you can't afford to use your heating
My sister Pam was born in February 47 and my Dad and Nanna went to visit they went up a hill towards nunthorpe nursing home in York they were holding on to each other and slipped in all the snow and both went down together ,they couldn’t get up for laughing and arrived at the nursing home wet through . Happy memories.
Brilliant video and pictures of incredible amounts of snow. Thank you ❄❄❄
We lived in Warrington Road, West side of Newcastle. I can remember the banked up snow still lying, unmelted, on the sides of the road in the June of that terrible winter.
Another great collection Colin. I was 6 YOA in 62-3 and do remember it being the worst snow that I have seen. From a young boy's perspective it was great being able to have fun on a sledge and create wonderful long slides and have endless fun on them. Although I was too young to know what it was like elsewhere across the UK in 63, but I am sure there were deep snow drifts in some parts of the country, but in Gateshead where I was at the time the snow was 'only'2 or 3 feet or so, and I am sure I still got to school which was about a mile away. In that sense, and from the photos you have here I would say 1947 must have been far worse and it was much more common to have 3 or 4 foot of show in the forties and fifties I would think !
I was six years old and remember it well. When I opened our back door there was a solid wall of snow and we later built an igloo in the garden - just big enough for a six year old!
One thing which we forget is that the country ran on coal. All power stations, factories and houses depended on it. Most houses cooked on gas which was made from coal but not only were the railways out of action but the massive coal heaps at the collieries were frozen solid. All this came just after World War 2 and the recession which that caused, but were we miserable ? - too right we were.
Fantastic video my mam was 7, she said the ❄️🌨️ was ³/⁴ up the back door. Also the 62/63. The winter of 09/10 was heavy, nothing compared to thise two
I started school in ‘47. The snow is all I can remember of ‘47. The earliest instances I can remember were the doodle bugs and the air raid sirens, the Anderson Shelters and Mrs Tovell’s basement flat where we all used to congregate during the air raids. Eventually, l discovered that the war was at last over and I was very worried and frightened because I thought that meant that life was over and we all going to die (or something) and was all unfair. - I hadn’t known a life without war. I was born in 1941 on Lord Rotheschilds estate in Tring and very soon after, a few weeks later, we returned to London, Number 126, Tulse Hill and then,less than a week later, we moved to Streatham and a day or two afterwards 126 Tulse Hill took a direct hit from a German thousand pounder leaving just a hole in the ground. A few days earlier and my whole life would have been just a few days and “my whole world just my mother’s arms” like the doomed bastard child of in Tess of the d’ Urbervilles (and along with many, many a poor infant in war torn London at that time.) Sometime later I was taken to see No. 126 Tulse Hill and there it was -just a hole in the ground, surrounded by the chain link fencing of wartime London - but didn’t really register with me at that time but I’m still standing.
In 1947 I was 2 years old so can't remember it, but I do remember 1962-1963 .....Yes people were a lot more resilient then, we didn't moan about everything, just got on with life, didn't expect someone else to sort things out, and didn't blame the government for everything, we took responsibility for our own lives, people were a lot more mature then and not wingers like today's generation.
Yes! I remember the 1947 winter snow. My father had to dig 6 foot of snow to get out of the front door so that my sister could get out. She was a WRN , wartime navy and had to walk to the docks. Took her hours to get there! Told off for being late!!
I was 5 years old and I remember the huge banks of snow along the side of the road as I was taken to school. That was in a wee village called Skelmorlie on the Clyde Coast.
In 1947 we were living out in the country during this tremendous snowfall and down the road from where we lived there was snow drifting 30 feet deep.
glamrock58
Nice film, I recognize the policeman you featured in the photo who was my first boss when I joined the civil service in 1971. He told me he gave up being a policeman after 1963 because he was fed up of being out in the cold. Ironically his name was Jack Frost.
I was two years old my brother lifted me up to see the snow covered most off our house my first memory my my mum wrapped all in blankets with a hot brick in our beds she heated on the open fire no e
I remember six-foot drifts against the door, and digging yourself out in the late 70's and spinning the car against a drift against a tree and rocking it 30 minutes to get it out in the 80's, so I could get into work.
I remember going out starting the car, leaving it running for 20 minutes - this is back when you could just lock the car doors as it was running, and who would steal a car under a snow drift, who would be out? and you went back in to watch TV until you had a chance or seeing anything through the windscreen - this of course is before heated windscreens...
Bad weather is not new...
Remember 1947 snow Teacher Mrs Henderson from Crofton Babies came and told us there was no school that day. Never happen now.
13 year old living in Thornley , pretty bad, still here ,
I made a comment on your other video of the 1962-63 winter which I did not experience as I left England in 1958 but I do remember well the 1947 winter living in Cheltenham.
I remember this well, I was 10 years at that time.
I was there.... remember my grandfather had to store the milk churns in the deep snow drifts because the lorry could not collect them. Snow too deep to sledge but built some enormous snowmen.
Used to work with a bloke from county Durham first job I had told me his dad left for work out the bedroom window snow was that deep
I was born March 1945 Birmingham., I remember the first snowfall, abput a foot of snow then trodden down by the people passing by. It then froze solid. My mum went out to go to a nearby shop but slipped and fell breaking 3 ribs. More snow ensued, it was really quiet. Normally there was lots of traffic being across the road from Morris Commercial factory. It seemed ages before the city came back to normality. Didn't stop dad from getting to the pub on the corner though.
Up to 4 in of snow is extreme weather conditions today lol.
The country comes to a standstill Paul now lol
I worked with young people who had never driven on snow and when we had a slight dusting one winter morning they did not turn up for work. I was seven in 1963. Back in the day, we used to get at least one quite bad fall of snow during the winter and I frequently had to drive 12 miles to work on bad roads. The journey included two long hills. It was a bit hairy but I always made it there and back. Health and safety was practically non-existent in those days.
@@amandaduggan9051 In the 70s we had heavy snow alot in the northeast of England now a few inches and people panick it's funny how people have changed.
My father told me that as no one could get to work where we lived, the local council employed all the local fit men to dig out roads so that we could be reconnected to the rest of the country!
I was born in the January of 1947 and in those days new mothers were expected to have a ”lying in” time ( in bed) for ten days after the birth. She said that she felt very fortunate because that meant other people would have to brave the cold to do the shopping.
Another world back then...people looked out for each other....not now ....1962 63 that weather came from Hawaii....i remember 78 into 79 that was bad walking to school through the drifts.not now school are closed for half inch of snow....
Ya back then communities looked after each other people pulled together in times of crisis it's a different world now❤
Born 1947 january ,giving birth found she was carrying twins ,no wahing machine ,disposable nappies outdoor loo, wonder how they would cope these days😮😮😮😮
My parents told me about this winter; imagine this with no central heating or double glazing! My grandmothers would be up first to get all the coal fires lit, and the best way to get dressed was to sleep with your next day's clothes in the bed so that they would get warm, and then change from night clothes in the morning under the covers.
So now I know why I was not outside in my pram for three months having been born in January of that year.
I was born in febuary of this year older siblings and parents told me how bad it was not just the snow but getting food and coal because nothing could move , but todays x gens think we had life easy no we worked and saved for what we wanted
My mother and my father were both born in February 1947.
I was born September 47 ,well mam and dad had to do something nine months earlier to keep warm
Remember I was ten had chicken pox really cold snowed n no school just stew to eat. But I survived just get on with it. No benefits then and whining like the young of today
3:51 Little boys in short trousers in the snow, makes your eyes water don’t it?
Good video, but 1947 was a freak year. The summer was hot, for the same reason the winter was harsh, ie no westerlies but east winds instead. That could happen now. It’s because of a breakdown of normal circulation and pressure systems.
1047 I remember that Mr Rayment fought his way through the snow drifts to get to the village to bring back bread for all of us. Snow drifts just up the road were over 12 feet high. The kerbs and footpaths were damaged by the snow plough and were still like that 20 years later.
I was seven in 1947 and remember that winter well, we had an inside toilet upstairs but it froze solid and couldn't be flushed - luckily the sewer part was still working so we could get a bucket of water after we'd done our business to flush it away. The insides of the windows in my bedroom were thick with ice in the mornings. All we had for heating was one coal fire in the front room downstairs which didn't do anything for heating the house - all we got was thick smoke blowing back into the room from the poor quality coal - if we could get any that is. And the bathroom washbasin froze solid so we couldn't wash our faces when we got up. Food was very poor quality, meat was so tough it was full of gristle, my Mum had to queue for ages with ration books to get anything - even rotten potatoes. Mum reused wool from old jumpers and knitted socks and a jumper for me, Dad was working two jobs and any part time work he could get as well. Very hard times but we just got on with it.
1:06 is my village in breighmet
If this weather happened today we would all die cos we know longer have coal fires and we cant afford to keep warm ,cos of the way we are being herded and ruled and told what we can and can't have
spot on Jean. we are living in horrible times. Not been able to keep heating on is not right.
And at that time the royal family peddled off to have a nice long holiday abroad. Easy for some people.
During the 62/63 cold snap I was 10 years old and the school toilets were outside, I cannot remember having a day off from school because of the cold snow and ice or the general conditions.
We had no central heating and only one coal fire at home and in the morning when we got up for school ice was on the inside of the windows.
I suppose we accepted it and people just went to work, sometimes was better to walk than wait in cold for a bus.
2:37 looks like 62/63, judging by the RF-like bus.
Obviously it was different for parts of UK, Whether you had employment etc.
How did we cope? Well i' is not like we lived in tropics, prior. Blood was thicker, in veins, to deal with it. Obvious also, the need for fuel to keep warm. People burned coal mainly. Life was built for it.
The snow-bound fells were different from suburbia
While not alive for '47 ... In '63 and of course my parents were there in '47
No matter what part of UK we had to adapt. In suburbs my dad insulated the water in roof tank and hung the old black-out material up to stop draughts... you know? Stuff... was done.. Hot water bottles with extra clothing were normal
It is always cyclical and driven by our sun through electricity, electro-magnetism and cosmic rays [protons] All connect to our upper atmosphere and drive our weather hot and cold.
December 2010 for me. Coldest December ever recorded
Oh god lord help the young today if it happened again, i can remember the winter of 63/64 as if it was yesterday, i can remember having to go about 2 miles to the coal wharf to get a pram of coal so we could have a fire and hot water, must have took me and my mates 4 hours, but it was normal to do things like that in those days, you all mucked in and did what was expected.
A time of reality when men were men and women were women.
That was when Haarp and chemtrails never igsisted and in them times that's when UK had decent summers and propper decent cold winters and better quality of air with no chemicals sprayed in the skies like we see now and why you don't get propper seasons and that's how winter should always be -20 below zero during the day and when summer should always be warm like Italy
The road between the Ridgeawy at he Southern edge of South Shields and Cleadon village was blocked by snowdrift at least 10 feet high
Incredible people who lived through the war and now this.....hope I am a tiny fraction resilient compared to them
I was told Canvey Island was flooded when the snow melted in June 1947.
My parents always told me about 1947, my father was waiting to be demobbed after serving in WW11 he was sent to help trains buried in the snow drifts.
I wasn’t born to the early fifties so missed that one, however is there a pattern emerging 1947-1963-1979 both 16 years apart, maybe just a coincidence.
you are so right😅
Yes look at that you see it was worse winters back in the day and every one got on with it and helped shovel it away as best they could and everyone helped each other , oh and NOT !! One word of climate change ,odd that isn't it ,these pictures are great archive's 👍 pictures , and the frozen lakes/rivers 😀
I WASD BORN IN 1944 INTO A REAL DICKENSIAN CHILDHOOD BUT PEOPLE AND LIFE BACK THEN WAS MORE NORMAUL UNLIKE TODAY.
Everyone was tobogganing on Duppas Hill. Eventually they bought me one : a great cumbersome thing it was, not like the sleek metal sleds everyone else had. But it was too late, the snow had started dispersing and I never used it it got stuck in the garden shed never to be taken out again
It was amazing how “we” coped but this was a country that was used to hardship after 6 years of war and rationing.
How was the winter of 1947 coped with? I was 4, and we lived near Manchester. The country had just come out of World War 2, and major bombardment of British industrial cities, by the Luftwaffe. Rationing - food, clothing, fuel (coal, gasoline, ... ), etc., was still in full effect. It would finally be lifted in 1954, nine years after the war 'ended'! So - the bombing had stopped; demobilization was in progress, veterans returning. Severe cold on top of that was by comparison with wartime, a minor inconvenience! But that winter seemed much colder than my first far colder Canadian midwestern winter, 19 years later. Buildings there are simply more realistically insulated than those even in modern Britain.
I was born that year in the April. Got pneumonia in the October.
I lived in a mining village we did not get electricity until 1948 so power was not a problem, we did have a radio ran on wet batteries. there was plenty of coal so heating was not a problem, we lived close to farm and got our milk and spuds I do not remember ever going without food, mam made our bread we had home made Jam (blackberry) made our butter from the farm cream. so for a 12 year old life was OK
No there was two worse winters Mike and bernie ,absolutely terrible 😮
Winters like this happen in many many countries even in the modern age. This is "normal" for many people in many countries.
So long as you have a well stocked provisions of dried and tinned foods and a house which can be kept warm and dry (fuel) then you will be okay for three months.
A lot of forecasters are expecting a colder than average coming this year - i.e. Dec '23 & Jan/Feb '24. Caused by El Nino, or a change in the polar vortex. Let's see.
This photo 2:15: is definitely not from 1947, as those trains didn't appear until 1959. Great video though. 👍
No. I think that was the 1963 one
Dose.t anyone like the winters of 1947 and 1963? I wish every winters are like those. Those were the real winters of uk, when there was no global warming.
The only year I remember that school was closed. Horse-drawn makeshift snow plows were used to try and clear streets so that coal and food could be delivered. This was followed by severe flooding in and around Nottingham, Derby, etc. I had to trudge down to the local gas plant a few times to get a bag of coke, which was the only fuel we could get to try and heat the house. In 1963, I was in the RAF and spent that winter digging out wherever we were sent. Both winters were pretty bad.
All the nonsense going around about how the current generation wouldn't be able to cope. We coped because we had no other choice and today's young people would too if things happened again. Fortunately they won't ever have to.
My own personal opinion that the severe winter of 1947 was caused by atmospheric pollution from the Mass bombing blitz of WW2
Coal not the rubbish gas elec fires that put no heat out even though all the money that goes on them real coal fire
We went out to try and find wood in the daytime, to have a fire in the evening. We must have had calor gas. I remember gas fittings with mantles on.😀