A Very Big Freeze

In the winter of 1962/63 I was at University in Newcastle upon Tyne, and my forces father was stationed in north Germany.

I was home for the Christmas holidays and when the cold weather started there was nothing between the north German plain and Siberia. It was so cold we needed to use the car to drive 200 yards to the corner shop. DS and I tried to walk it but even with scarves around our faces the searing air cut our lungs like a knife and we had to turn back.

I then returned to Newcastle and 4 foot of snow, but below freezing or not it was so much warmer than Germany and as I staggered through the drifts I could be heard muttering in ecstasy, 'it is so warm here, so warm' Everyone thought I was mad.

I can remember walking to school through the snow in 1947! That was a very cold winter and very few people had central heating then. We certainly didn’t.

I was 9 in 1963 and I can clearly remember walking the 3 miles to my junior school, and back, along with my older brother and sister. We had to walk along country lanes, with no houses nearby and no main roads. I don't remember any of the schools closing at that time and you weren't expected to be late either!

Oh I remember the winter of 1963. Our firstborn was just 2 months old, and we lived in a bungalow on a slight hill to the station. We didn't have a car and DH walked to and from the station every day, on his way to London. I did have a lovely big, bouncy coach built pram, and got plenty of exercise into town and back, several times during the werk, as we didn't have a freezer. So food shopping was as and when we needed things. My friend's little lad used to knock for DH to come out and play

We didn't have a car either

1982 was bad as well, I fell over and landed quite heavily, trying to take the DC to school - which wasn't shut - and having a struggle to get up because I was very pregnant.

In '63 I was in London, the snow lated for ages and never did I see such dirty snow.

It was about a 30 min walk to college, Regents St from Victoria, and coming from the Highlands and being a bit of a teuchetr found my way around easily with little traffic.

By comparison we are wimps now!

I don't recall schools being closed but I do remember a lorry coming round with water as pipes were freezing up right, left and centre.

Just talking to DH who thinks that was the year local state schools closed and his private school didn't! To add insult to injury their heating broke down. He was so incensed he brought the 6th Form out on strike.

His father had quite a bit of grovelling to do (and presumably some donating!!) to stop him being expelled as that would have barred him from any university after A levels.

I have a photo somewhere of blocks of ice in the sea of our local beach and drifts 8ft high along the hedgerows in '63. I can't remember if school was open, I was 9 in January that year.
Also remember bad winter late '70's ??

I don't think schools in Scotland closed - at least I didn't get off teaching practice . In Linlithgow there was (is?) a steep brae up to the station. Few cars could manage it, but my young sister, who was at school in Edinburgh, and I drove the family's mini which took that brae with ease, as the mini was, at the time, the only car with front wheel drive. It made out commute a great deal easier. Railway platforms ar the coldest places!

If we had cars! I was 14 and don't really remember much about it so we must have just coped. To get to school, I had to walk a mile to the bus and then it was an eight mile journey by bus down country lanes. I don't remember being off school though.

In 62/63 we had the sense to leave cars in the garage and walk.

Remember it well. I walked to work, about 3/4 miles and didn't think anything of it. Same in 1967, working in a different city. Yes, no central heating. Were we made of sterner stuff?