[BITList] True grit in the face of snow - Telegraph

[fs]

Hello Hugh,
I remember the 47 freeze well as we had no coal either so I used to raid 
the bombed building for timber and take that home on my sledge
frank

On 1/7/2010 10:02 PM, HUGH wrote:
> One of the commentators mentioned the 1962-63 snow as being much worse 
> than the present.  I don't recall, but I've every confidence he's 
> correct.  One of the few entries in a 1963 diary reads. "Slight thaw.  
> Back to work. Roll on Friday!"  That was Monday, the 14th January.  
> The next entry, for 15th February, is a recipe for trifle, so no help 
> there.
> The media are all over the place with their recollections of past 
> weather.  Worst in history, worst for 50 years, etc. Much later than 
> 1962-63 my cousin was in hospital awaiting an expert to get through 
> the snow to have a talk with him about his MS.  He had expected to 
> turn up, have a chat, then go home, but in the absence of the expert, 
> and the presence of dreadful road conditions, he was offered a bed for 
> the night which extended to a couple.  He accepted this and, being a 
> very skilled motor mechanic, ran a surgery for medical staff whose 
> cars were suffering from ailments.  The commonest ailment was related 
> to frozen radiators and cyl head blocks.  I recall him telling me they 
> couldn't understand why they were having problems after not skimping 
> on the anti-freeze.  He directed their attention to the label on the 
> anti-freeze, where it was good for temperatures higher than the minus 
> 20C we were getting.  Val is fine now - drives, carries a folding 
> stick, but no longer has 20-20 vision without glasses.  I believe that 
> period was famous for 20- foot drifts burying cars and occupants on 
> country roads.
> Part of our problem is that we are bombarded with useless information 
> about the snowfall in places we can't spell, let alone find on a map.  
> In the 1947 deep freeze my parents and family were only a year in our 
> new council house up the hill.  The area is only accessible via a 
> long, ie, long, and steep hill, and the gearboxes of the one bus an 
> hour were not up to it even without the 18" of snow and ice that lay 
> around us for weeks.  So we did without coal, and survived on what 
> food was available from the occasional heroic trudge into town, an 
> hour each way.  For fuel we cut down most of a birch wood a couple of 
> miles further into the wilderness and brought it home on sledges.  We 
> hadn't a clue what was happening elsewhere, and we didn't feel 
> deprived thereby.
> Hugh.
>
>
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