The first snow fell Boxing afternoon 1962 I watched the first flakes fall it was still light then Next morning we opened the back door to be greeted by a wall of snow with just a small gap at the top of the doorframe. This was rather inconvenient as we still had an outside toilet lit by a candle ....but that's another story. I was 13 in 1963 and boy did we have fun I seem to recall we were deep frozen until March and during this time we had multiple snow falls. Ponds and lakes were frozen so much that people drove cars over the ice. Heating those days were paraffin dome heaters the one downfall from them was the condensation would form on your single glazed windows, you would wake up in the morning with fantastic ice patterns ON THE INSIDE ! Getting washing dry was a real problem too My mum used to hang wet clothes outside and they would freeze stiff LOL .Boy life was so much better in those days there were no over weight kids and the simple life was so good Harold McMillian said "we have never had it so good" He was right !
I can remember the snow falling on Boxing day myself it's one of my earliest memories I was four but it's so clear to me with such detail. My uncle and aunt left just as it was getting dark and the street lights had made it turn orange outside as we waved goodbye. My father stood in front of the coal fire warming himself and he said its going to get cold as he rubbed his hands. So vivid and I checked my memory with my mother about 20 years later to see if I'd imagined it. Something so pleasant with that memory and the snow in the garden was soon above my head as I played in the snow.
I was the same age in 2010 which was also fantastic! My late dog who sadly passed away this March was just a puppy then and he absolutely loved the two months of constant snow in 2010! I dream of going back to that time even though it's a lot more recently than 1963! Winter 2009 was brilliant too - it was two amazing Scottish winters back-to-back! I really hope I get to experience a winter like 2009 and 2010 again. The Beast from the East in 2018 was good but not on the same level.
I was only a young child at the time but I remember waking up every morning and looking out the bedroom window at all the snow for months on end and being fascinated by all the thick frozen ice on the insides of the window that was smooth but bumpy and in ridges for some reason . In all the upstairs rooms this ice stayed on the inside of the windows all day and night long . So cold , but I miss it and those times so much . People seemed to have so much more time for each other in those days .
How could I not forget the freeze of ‘63. I was married in February 1963 and there was deep snow everywhere. Yet I wore a light coat, hat and high heels plus cotton gloves for the marriage and never felt in the least cold. I remember falling on top of my husband because the pavements were so slippery. The cold weather and snow never inconvenienced me one bit. Oh to be young, healthy and happy.
My father was a small farmer in the fens. He could not get machinery onto the fields to harvest sugar beet. He tried having men dig them by hand with a tractor and small hod on the back to move the beet to the edge of the road for collection for the sugar factory. It was so bad the crop was damaged and he gare up trying to harvest them. He had to plough in the bulk of his produce that year. Yet one summer between then and 1967 we had a scortching but late summer and I recall working 14 hour days for three weeks on end with no break to get in the corn harvest. We didn't call it climate change we just knew that weather in Britain was prone to variation season by season, even week by week.
Remember it well,ice on the inside of the windows,outside toilet freezing cold,more eiderdowns and coats on the bed with a hot water bottle.Amazingly,schools didn't close and we had to get there by walking.I remember opening the back door and finding a total wall of snow had banked up,had to dig my way out into the yard so we could get to the loo!Sadly now they think they've got bad weather when they have to clear a path! For anyone who doubts that we were tougher and less namby pamby,just look at this.
John Thorpe these days even if there is a few snow flakes they CLOSE all the schools.They don't want kids to take any risks so that later in life they will rely on government to look after them with strings attached of course.
I was just over three, but remember the hot chocolate for supper and being tucked up tightly in bed, with a hot water bottle. Rest of house very cold. Draughty windows. No heating in house, except the occasional oil filled radiator and the coal/log fire in the living room. We went out in wellies to play/work on the farm, returning with socks that had disappeared around the cold toe ends of the wellies. My father had to sort frozen water for his livestock, then their food of course. He was fit and strong, but exhausted.
I can still remember it well, I was six at the time. I love these old scenes, and I also love the music, which I believe is Mahler's symphony number 5 in C sharp minor. Just wish I could turn back the clock. So much.
@@gillianmason4198 your right, even though 80% of homes in the uk were lovely coal fires, many with back boilers which we had. C02 remained stable, until industrialisation really went overboard and forest fire burns, meant less c02 was being absorbed.
Remember it well, we were in one of the iron houses in Dudley, there's one in the black country museum, it was so cold water would freeze solid in the bedrooms at night, never complained or thought of ourselves as hard done by, milk left on the doorstep would freeze and push the tinfoil top off, we kids were hard as nails and loved every minute of it.
Same here, also , inside the windows, all frosted up , happy days, not , central heating now , thankfully. If I remember, it was on boxing day when it started.
It started on Boxing Day 1962 and lasted until the end of March 1963. A friend of my father's Wolseley 680 froze up on it's radiator putting that out of use, my father's car an Austin was seriously damaged in an accident at Earls Court so that was out of use. No central heating so "Jack Frost" in bedrooms.
Those were the days when the coalman worked overtime to make sure we had enough supply to heat the sitting room which also gave you constant hot water. The bedrooms and bathroom were so cold in the winter months. used to get washed in front of the fire if it was too cold. I would be sent with a large can to get a gallon of parrifin to heat the parrifin heater which would be stood in our bedroom when temperatures were extreem during the night. schools never closed in those days and you just went about your normal daily routine snow or no snow. Also you had more white christmasses in those days and we used to walk across the fields for a mile to midnight mass and back home again afterwards. That was life in West Yorkshire like every other place in the UK.
Paraffin heaters were the heaters you used in larger houses. we had a large 4 bed house, cos mother did letting in summer. But both the main hall, and long landing upstairs, need one heater down and one up. But the smell went they ran out of paraffin and burnt the wick was Horrible . Guess who took two gallon cans to the ironmongers every other day, with our house number on it haha..! we had 4 fireplaces, But only used the main living room one as it heated the back boiler, no cold water in our house, and electricity wasn't used for much in the sixties, no tvs or ps4 or alexas or electric heaters. Just gas and coal.
Paraffin heaters...The Hardware shop smelled of it...The heater in out hallway where the blue flames twirled in a circle...but the damp heat they gave off...Not so good. Central heating is bliss in comparison...With a log burner for 'fun' on cold days.
I was 6 at the time, and the day the first snow fell, I built a snowman with my brother and my Dad. We rolled up snow in a huge ball, added another for its torso and a third for its head. A few days later the temperature fell to about ZERO Fahrenheit, and turned the thing into 'super' ice, and it didn't finally melt until July 1963. I still have twinges of guilt, because we had to bash the last remaining bit with a spade before it finally melted!
I was 10 at the time, and I remember the water pipes freezing, and my Dad putting candles underneath them to try and stop them freezing, then when they thawed out, the problem of them bursting was also a worry, as the pipes were then made of lead..and would expand.
I still remember this, I must have been 11yrs old. As far as I can recall, schools didn't close. Not like nowadays, where even a forecast of snow can close a school.
tectorama Same here , it had to be blooming bad before we got off school , here in Aberdeenshire it was really bad for while, the council had ex army Mack trucks left behind when the Americans went back after the war , they would push through the deepest of snow , it would grind to halt if thes winters came back .
@@gillianmason4198 Oh yes! I remember that the terrible burning ache of the sudden warm up. Cold water from the tap helped, but so agonising. My little brother screamed with pain, his little red hands like scarlet bruised starfish.
@@elizabethtaylor9321 The Radiator in my bedroom has NEVER been turned on, in 37 years. I have double glazing and good insulation, but don't like a heated room. Perhaps winter's like this and 1947, toughedned me up.
Oakleaf700 : My brother and I used to get jammies off and school uniform on while still under the blankets. I went to watch Charlton Athletic play their cup match 12 times before it actually went ahead. Snow piled up on London streets until well into April.
@@stevetaylor9846 I was a toddler at the time, and remember snow piled high above my head...And the cold nipping my toes and fingers in my pushchair!... What is really nostalgic, My mum died young in 1962, but dad remarried.... And my ''new'' mum now lives maybe 20 yards from the first house we lived in... My neighbours, bless them, {now `RIP'} never heated their bedroom, and had storage heaters right up until the end.... But they lived to Eighty plus and Ninety plus, so it did them little harm. We had a 1600's cottage in the 1970's, and that was truly FREEZING. An inglenook that sounds romantic, but in the mornings with an icy blast coming down the chimney before the fire was lit... ugh! But nowadays people keep houses far too hot. My luxury sometimes in cool evenings is to have the woodtburning stove on, and a window slightly open...fresh air yet direct heat.
RIP Mr Alvin. This was the year I was born, in Norfolk. Dad shot masses of cine film, he captured lots of life with his beloved cine camera, one day I'll upload it, when I find out how to do so haha...
You can always contact me, directly as I knew Alvin form the Cine club. And saw many of his films. I have two more on my channel by Eric.. Around Epping 1973 - 1982, Harlow New Town. he was a dedicated documentary maker.
l remeber it well. this was not only the coldest winter on record but it was the year l got married, so l will never forget 1963. and l am still married to the same man
Yes my dad and mum still married for about 58 years very long time...i am still young and unmarried at 49 i know my dad and mum were married in '59 just before that year!
1963 was the year my father died, May 19. I was going on 13. In January of that winter ('64) we had a big Sunday blizzard (1/13 IIRC) of about 8" and wind gusts hitting 50. It only lasted a few days though; by Thursday or Friday most of the snow was gone.
I think it was made famous because of the length it remained cold, close to 3 months after the first snow fell before some places were starting to thaw out. It was certainly the worse winter in terms of how long it lasted, we'd had slightly colder winters but they didn't blanket most of the country with snow for several months, they only lasted a week or two. I'd sooner have 2 weeks with it dropping to -15 than 8 weeks with it dropping to minus 10. What I remember most was there seemed to be no flies, and hardly any bird's, the air was very clean and fresh, back then cars kicked out deadly exhaust fumes, many vehicles weren't around and the air quality seemed to vastly improve
That's what my Dad said a couple of days ago we were remembering days gone by. Small hill farm in Shropshire and my parents were snowed in from Boxing Day until the end of March. No vehicular access for quite a while and Dad had to walk over the snow to the pub to collect groceries. Even so they had to kill a couple of laying hens for food. He dug out the lane with a tractor and back link box and I've seen photos of the wall of snow some 5 foot high on either side of his cut through.
Yes I was about 10 at the time and delighted to see the carpet of snow on our lawn, here in south east Essex. Someone had shoveled a huge mound of icy snow outside our primary school and it didn't melt till Easter.
Yep, I was there too. Mum & dad, myself and my two brothers travelled from our home in Heathfield Road, Bromley to visit dad's sister, Maud and uncle Horry (Horace) Dalton, in their Prefab in Kidbrooke, South London on Boxing Day 1962. While we were there, sometime in the afternoon or early evening it started to snow, marking the start of the long deep freeze of 1963
I remember this vividly. The fountain in the town centre froze overnight ...the sprays frozen in mid air. The milk bottles froze on the doorstep. I had to chip ice off the inside of my bedroom window. The school waterpipes froze and the janitor was sent up to the loft with a blowtorch. Unfortunately he torched the gas pipe by mistake and the roof caught fire!!!
@@gehlen52 the hours i spent lost in that coal fire.... you're so right.😊 The armchair pulled up close. And then the shock of getting a burning coal shot into your lap! 😁
I remember nan encouraging us as kids to look into the fire. Stared for ages while she described the grotto shapes in the embers and told us fairy stories. "Go on your XBox" is all most get now!
No school closures then because all our parents were at work in the Factories shipyards or on the fishing fleet.So our teacher got us to walk along the sea front to Pakefield Church in Suffolk 2 miles to do brass rubbings to keep warm! I was 11. I remember the snow fall had stopped and it was a briliant sunny day.. but the sea had frozen for quite a distance thats how cold it was.. we were amazed to see a large conger eel frozen , its head out of the water as if it was trying to escape the cold. Our house had very thin windows, they froze on the inside. our pipes burst and I remember my Mum sitting in the lounge amidst the devastation crying her eyes out. Bad times- we still had not fully recovered from events 20 years before.
I remember that period vividly, we lived in Chadwell Heath, Essex. My dad helped my brother (5 )and I (6) build a snowman in the front garden. We happily pelted each other with snowballs, the traffic was almost none existent, so we could slide up and down the High Road to our hearts content. Hands frozen, but enormous fun. I don't recall being cold, always thought of it as being magical!
We lived in North Staffordshire and had recently moved to live some distance from our schools, 4 miles in fact. As the buses weren't able to run we were made to "wrap up warm" and walk to school and back again. We did this every day until the snowploughs cleared the roads. We were made to set off early to make sure that weren't late for school. None of our schools were closed
I remember this. It started to rain heavily on Boxing Day . In the late afternoon the rain turned to snow and didn't stop for days, then froze. I started work on 1 January and had to cross over a canal that still had ice on it until end of March. I don't remember being cold though. no central heating. Perhaps we've gone soft.
Our farm in Dorset was cut off for three months , but we made our own electric and had a spring that never froze. We managed to get out with a horse drawn sled to get basic supplies (flour and tea) The xmas turkey was made to last in various forms that usually ended as soup! After the thaw we had the Lister startomatic generator services as it had run three months non stop , the service and fuel bill came to £11-10/6 (£11.52) The Old man (DAD ) played hell and asked for a discount!
I was sent to the shop 3 MLS away as we were out of things. Decided to cut across the fields to knock off a mile. Gale force wind came up with blowing snow and I could not see a thing. There I was stranded in a complete whiteout. I got myself turned around, and even though I was only a short distance from our cottage I couldn't see anything. Finally it cleared for a minute or two and I found the drystone wall, following it to the gate and back home. Mum said I had been gone almost two hours, and I reckoned I had gone less than a mile. For a 13 yr old it was very scary. Was
I was in north london as a child and the snow was over a foot deep never seen the likes again, you get a few snow flakes in london now panic takes over. Notice how i mentioned snow flakes
I was 1 that year and my parents also had a 3 and a 5 year old! How they must have struggled to keep us warm and fed! No Pampers then, poor mum had to soak towelling ones! The good thing was my grandparents parents and aunt and uncle and baby all lived in the same house and I suppose helped each other to get through this time. I think we are too soft now and would find it very hard and inconvenient if we had that amount of snow now!
I was 16 at the time and working in a garage. Holding a spanner was a bunch of laughs, and when you bashed your knuckles on something, the air was soon warmed up.
1963 I was a rent collector in Basildon in Essex. I had a 2 hour bus ride to work, no heaters in the buses in those days then trudging around in the waist deep snow. I got frost-bite and by the Wednesday I couldn't walk any more.
This takes me back. In fact, it seems like only yesterday. I was living in Swansea, but working the other side of Cardiff. Every morning I was picked up at 06.30, four of us made the journey East. We got through every day without incident. Not too much traffic around, but no motorway to help the journey. The return home in the dark was a bit more scary. It was so cold.
Ah yes, I remember it well. It was magical to awaken to that snow at Christmas, but after weeks and weeks, it was all filthy and we were all sick of it..!!!!
Agreed. It was great at the time, but two months into that freeze, getting about normally was still impossible, sledges were sold out, bought home paraffin in cans on a home sledge made out of one of mums old serving trays. school was all inside, no fresh air, snowball fights were banned in playground eventually as was making slides. It got very weary approaching March, fed up with trying to take the dog out in evening, as by then pavements were solid ice again. By mid march it relented at last. But one council made huge ball of snow 15ft by 15ft, took until the start of April to actually completely go away, yep dirty or slush, got into your shoes and splashed mud on your trousers...!!
I remember it. I was seven. The road up to the village snowed in faster than it could be cleared. The drifts were stunning .It became just a pathway for three weeks. My mother was not perturbed. She had a months supply of home preserved food in the pantry. If this happened today I really worry that the consequences would be very serious.
What a wonderful video, l remember that year and the snow. There were 8 children in our family and we had a good time making snowman and having snowball fights. Dad had to walk 9 miles to work and same back, people then we're a different breed back then. 😊🐱🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
I was 18 years old at this time.I was at University In Nottingham.I came home for my birthday (Big mistake)We were stuck on a train on Harringworth Viaduct,as the diesel locomotive failed.We were rescued by a steam Locomotive.We just got on with it,we survived and lived to tell this tale.
If these winters come back Britain will grind to halt , back then we just got on with it, pardon the pun ! But there wasn’t many snowflakes back then .
Ian McGreevy you are joking I hope , first bit of snow and everything grinds to a halt , school buses won’t run , TO RISKY ! Snowploughs aren’t out on the roads until 7 am if your lucky unless it’s a main trunk road , I’m old enough to remember the winters of the late fifties and sixties , six feet of snow with drifting , water pipes frozen for days on end , now , 2 “ of snow and it’s made out to be Armageddon , no I’m afraid the softies of today would never cop with what we did .
I remember this winter very well I lived in Gloucestershire my brother and I had to walk on the stonewalls either side of the road to go to school the drifting on the road was so deep unfortunately schools did not close in them days
I was in Comprehensive school during this winter in 1963. It had been built 2 years earlier and had modern buildings and a huge boiler house that heated to school. Only those travelling in on school buses left early My late parents both went out to work every day on public transport that ran to time table in Liverpool with the corpy always nightly gritting to main roads. People back then seemed to just get on with things, and showed resilience that may have overflowed from world war 2. What would the media say or government do if, heaven forbid, we had another three month big freeze like 1963. Or for that matter a repeat of 1976 when we had a three month heat wave.
At prep school in Yorkshire Michaelmas term, the PE master (ex Para Regt) got us boys to bank up snow on a hillside to create a mini ‘Cresta Run’. We sledged down it at great speeds for weeks. No gormless liberal health and safety crap, no crash helmets, no hi-tech fabric clothes, just lots of energy and a bit of courage. The ‘Cresta ‘ was still there at Easter. Happy days -
Those magnificent ice ''Slides'' in the playground caused by rubbing soles of shoes on the frosty ground... Til they gleamed in the light. then run....and sliiiiiddddddeeeee... Sure we fell over, but nowadays ice slides are banished by health and safety in case a parent sues the school.
My word , that takes me back. I was 15 at the time and lived in Rowhedge near Colchester. My Brother was mate on the Thames barge Varuna. She was trapped in the sea ice in the Hythe (Docks) in Colchester. For several weeks. I was told the sea was frozen solid for ten miles out to sea.
I was only 7 but have vivid memories of this winter. Not least of which was the zero insulation offered by a pair of wellies and hand knitted mittens!! 57 years on, all nice and cosy with the central heating on on in October can't help wondering how we all survived it was so damn cold ice on the windows inside and out all huddled around the paraffin heater in the kitchen in the mornings trying to get warm while mum or dad got a fire going in the harth. At age 23 pregnant with my first child it moved to the north of Scotland and experienced similar weather every winter right through the 80s . I love how this video is says Heathrow Airport was closed until at least lunchtime 😂😂 it was only a few years ago when we had an inch of snow the airports were closed for 2 days!
i love how folk are saying stupid stuff like "-19'c isn't cold for me". Ofc, it's not, but then -60'c would be mild for Antarctica on a balmy winter's night. And again, -1'c would be a disaster in Miami! Please don't think it's a competition, severe weather is situation and relevant!
I knew a Canadian girl, lived in London in the 1970's and she said she's never been as cold as here..the damp cold and the crap insulation of old housing made winters icy .
Thanks, I agree. I was in the US Navy in 12/68, a staff car driver for the Pacific Fleet HQ. One morning I had a trip at about 5am; the temp was around 62. Being raised in Illinois that was nothing, but wearing a white cotton uniform and not being used to it after 9 months there, my teeth chattered. I wanted to get out my blues! 4 hours later it was in the high 70s.
I was 8, the huge coal burning stove in the classroom, .......Mums endless supply of porridge and soup (strangely I still like both!), ...................... the rough ride and noise of the snow chains on Dads Ford Anglia van, ...........my sister and I had duffel coats, .............and we both still did the mile + cross country walk to school with Mum, .....................Dad had some ex Navy Watchkeepers coats which were put on us kids beds as extra blankets on really cold nights (effectively ''pinning us down to the bed'' they were that heavy.) Extra vitamin C and malt extract for us kids every day, home knitted ''seaboot stockings'' mittens and balaclava helmets for us all (get shot as terrorist today!) .and a home made sledge we dragged everywhere.
I was 16 and living in the Vale of Evesham. I remember it well. I earned quite a bit helping the local farmers with their livestock.There were pigeons just dropping dead as they flew , through the cold and starvation. The snow drifts were up to the eaves on some of the exposed houses.
wildlife suffered very badly in that Winter, loved seeing new programs showing Sir Peter Scott from Slimbridge feeding the hundreds of migrant geese and swans.
I was eight and there were 9 foot drifts of snow down the lane to our house in Essex. It went on for months and I remember thinking, 'will it ever end'. People walked miles to keep up their routines.
I was 13 living in Liverpool. We made a skating rink on the lawn and played ice hockey. Didn't miss a day of school. But when the snow melted the lawn was damaged.
I didnt think the North West got any of this.?? my hometown in Sussex got the lions share of it along with kent, as we were closest to the finger numbing easterlies at that time?
Lots of Epping Essex views. I was almost ten and living in Harlow Essex and can recall opening our front door to be confronted by a wall of snow higher than our letter box, We still went to school though . My brother and i earned quite a sum clearing people`s paths over the weekends. Happy days.
Boys at my prep school still required to wear shorts and garters every day of the week and on Sundays. No allowances made for the cold then. Try enforcing those rules nowadays.
The winter of '62 - '63 was my introduction to the UK having lived in Kenya up to that point. It was made all the more interesting by staying in a Tudor house where the only heating was the front room coal fire and the bedroom sash windows were a rattle fit.
@@MrDaiseymay Not a bit of it - it taught me to be as tolerant of cold as Kenya had for heat. Am now quite happily living in the Peak District in an old stone place that could only be heated in the winter if you set it on fire.
And me! No snowflakes then, ( no pun intended ) we just got on with it. An inch of snow now everyones' off work, schools closed, hospitals inundated. We had ice on the inside of the windows, (no central heating and double glazing then!). Up in the morning and light the fire, or stay in bed as long as poss, then up and straight out.
I was 15 at school, in Eastbourne. the sea froze around the pier, the Downs impassable, 8 feet drifts in the country, 12 feet in kent, that actually buried trains after being abandoned. Three months it went on until March 1963, with the first snow falling heavily in London On boxing day 1962, after a really damp rainy mild start to December. We also walked to school in 2 feet at least on pavements, my fathers milk float and the few cars that were about all had snow chains, houses with the usual lead water pipes froze solid in attics and easily burst, meaning fire crews were kept busy knocking down lethal 4 feet icicles.. which in those days insulation was not really developed like today. How ever our dog loved it, and rubbed his nose in 1 foot of snow in our garden. Dustbin lids had 13 inches of snow on them. We had so much snow three of us made an igloo, enough for three people to get in. our teacher gave us some pastels, and we painted what cave men would have scrawled many thousands of years ago. What made it possible to survive, was that stores were local, we had coal fires, gas for ovens and electric, when it didnt get cut off. No one drove, cars weren't used in winter, my fathers was put on black in December 1962 and covered up, it was only in late March 1963 that we saw our car again. We went to school normally, school snowflakes wasnt known, if you were late, you got a prefect on your back. I only remember one time at 3pm in the science lab that overlooked the playground, that a white our occurred, and we soon had a message we could go home early, Early, as in an hour and half early. My school day was 8.30am to 4.15pm. that was already pitch dark, and freezing. We lost a lot of wildlife that year, 90% of the Wren population was wiped out. while my mums bird table had to be filled three times a day to feed so many birds trying to stay alive. The first TV broadcasts from Slimbridge Wetlands and wildlife trust, by Sir Peter Scott showed hundreds of Bewick and Hooper swans being fed in the early evening. One shudders to think how modern Britain , relying on electricity only and using cars in the winter would possibly survive another 1963.? And to top it off, there's a lot of wind farms now, that would grind to a halt, because heavy snow on the blades would cause serious overheating of the mechanisms, plus other components may freeze solid. I woke to frost inside my bedroom window, as only sash windows then, no double glazing then!....scraping the amazing designs off the inside of the window was wierd, but quite normal then.
@@mikedestiny4122 your post is just fantastic, I was 8 in 63 and what you wrote brings back many memories for me, yes it was hard, but I would not swap my 60s childhood for any other decade.
Yep i was 8 and at school in taunton and we just walked and without our mum,s and dads . Coats on beds no heating only one coal fire. Pipes frozen ,milk climbing out of the bottle and us kids pushing milkmen and bakers up the hills . How different things are now
It really was nuts I was eleven at the time and walk to school something children no longer seem to do.My parents had to walk 3 miles each way to work.this meant no nice hot fire to come home to and it lasted 3 months I lived in Hertfordshire at the time
Yes it was a great time for kids-I was 9 at the time. But now I wonder what sort of struggle it must have been for adults trying to keep their homes warm and get food in.It never got warm in our house as we only had a coal fire which never really warmed the room let alone the rest of the house.Getting up in the morning was a nightmare as the whole house was like living in a fridge with thick ice on the inside of the windows.I wonder how we would cope now without the likes of central heating,double glazing etc.Yes it was a great time for kids...
kevin heming I was doing a paper round , morning and evening, as I had just turned 13. I think in hindsight it did me good, as it has been quite a tough life so far but I have managed quite well ( I think ! )
Sadly the work ethic has now disappeared because we have now moved into the "Pussy generation". A paper round bought me my first motorbike and I got to work on it every day during the "Big Freeze" and really it wasn't that bad. Life can throw much worse shit at you.
I was 13 at the time. Went to school in wellingtons. Looked at my school timetable and we were down for P.E. cross country running in the last lesson of the morning and I thought, that's us kicking a football about in the snow. Not only did we end up doing the cross country run, but due to the female P.E. teacher not able to get in, the girls also had to join in. The sick note brigade were made to clear the football pitch by rolling giant snow balls.
I was born in Sunderland in that winter! I still say that baptism of fridged weather set me up to handle pretty much anything life has thrown at mean in the intervening 56 years!
The plumbers had a lot of work that winter. Our water pipes froze and burst on at least two occasions. Coal fires and back boilers , no central heating roof insulation or double glazing . It lasted from December till May !. Probably Britain's longest period of winter weather ever , worse than 1947.
I remember it well, I was 11. we lived on the Suffolk Coast. Did they shut the school- yes only because they couldn't heat it, out of coal.. But were we allowed home.. certainly not as our parents were all out working back then. Instead our teacher force marched us along the coast 2 miles to a little church at a place called Pakefield, where they has some beautiful brass memorial plates from the 15th Century, so we got busy in the aisle with our black cobblers wax and paper taking an impression of the plate.. that kept us warm. It was a brilliant clear day and the sea had frozen for 50 yards out, with a huge conger eel trapped in the ice as if frozen in time.. When the thaw came all the pipes in our house burst.. I remember my Mum standing in the living room ankle deep in water sobbing her eyes out :(
The footage appears to depict more than one winter as the building shown under construction at 2:57 is shown completed at 5:15 - maybe a classic car buff could shed light on it through the vehicles shown?
At the time my dad was only 9 months old when the big freeze started and it has warmed up on his 1st birthday and it’s almost 55 years ago and I first hear the big freeze from my grandad and my dad and always have plenty of food and drink during the big freeze in any colder countries and keep warm 👍
i was from Loughton but lived in Harlow and remember 1963 winter well,my car waqs buried in snow for 3 days, We left UK in Feb,14th 1964 for Adelaide, Australia,have not encountered snow since.
My dad and mum used to live in Dublin during big freeze wintry weather in 1963...very big and snwy weather...i remember my dad and mum used to live there in Sandymount in early sixies...recall my dad and mum used to go out there and here cos it's so cold around -5 Celsius but nighttime dropped to -12 ro under...Brrrrrrrrrr!
@@marionmoore665 YES! Jack Frost ❄️ I too imagined him with a wand making the lovely fronds..They are quite beautiful...and scratching them with a fingernail to make a hole to see through :)
@@migranthawker2952 Do you have single glazing and no central heating?...It is since having those we haven't seen the frost flowers ..Bedrooms used to get them the most, maybe as they were unheated, except for a hot water bottle that was gorgeous at 7pm , but like a heavy cold thing at 7am :)
ha yes, me and three school friends made an igloo side of a house, it was epic. when finished that 3 of us could get in, our art teacher we told we had made a prehistoric igloo, gave us a load of pastels, and told us to draw scenes that caveman would have drawn thousands of years ago, it became our pet project, looking into books for ideas for scenes, the real world I knew and loved was late sixties and seventies on my Lambretta scooter, and then one Vespa ss180 with a girl on the back with flowing hair streaming backwards, such fulfilling and fun times then, and DIY mechanics was king :)
Mike Destiny thanks so much for telling me your story, i am a teenager and your story has interested me. I really hope we could see a proper cold winter again as i am sick and tired of mild winters.
I was 13 at the time. No central heating, ice on the inside of windows and power cuts so no heating at all in living rooms and bedrooms. I lost all my tropical fish. The snow loses its attraction very quickly. And yes, the schools kept open and we still had outdoor sports lessons.
@@2Sugarbears I live at poverty level. Regardless, I don't need the State dictating how I live. I make my own life choices and have never relied on government assistance.
Annie Spencer you obviously didn’t experience it, so you ain’t fit to comment. Just remember, that if they weren’t tough, you probably wouldn’t be allowed to utter inane stupidity like you just have!
I lived in London at the time & there was very little food available. Went to what passed for a supermarket at the time, plenty of washing up liquid & scouring powder but virtually no food on the shelves. A very few tins of very expensive luxury items such as Asparagus & Celery Hearts but nothing else to be had. We had to queue up at the counter to buy the half a loaf of bread allowed per family. It was eaten toasted without anything on it as there was no margerine or jam available. (Butter was unaffordable for the majority of people at the time but that wouldn't have been delivered either. The lorries could not get through.)
![Kumamoto Masters Japan 2024 | Gregoria Mariska Tunjung (INA) [5] vs. Akane Yamaguchi (JPN) [2] | F](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EIjZybhsWqA/mqdefault.jpg)
The first snow fell Boxing afternoon 1962 I watched the first flakes fall it was still light then Next morning we opened the back door to be greeted by a wall of snow with just a small gap at the top of the doorframe. This was rather inconvenient as we still had an outside toilet lit by a candle ....but that's another story. I was 13 in 1963 and boy did we have fun I seem to recall we were deep frozen until March and during this time we had multiple snow falls. Ponds and lakes were frozen so much that people drove cars over the ice. Heating those days were paraffin dome heaters the one downfall from them was the condensation would form on your single glazed windows, you would wake up in the morning with fantastic ice patterns ON THE INSIDE ! Getting washing dry was a real problem too My mum used to hang wet clothes outside and they would freeze stiff LOL .Boy life was so much better in those days there were no over weight kids and the simple life was so good Harold McMillian said "we have never had it so good" He was right !
I can remember the snow falling on Boxing day myself it's one of my earliest memories I was four but it's so clear to me with such detail. My uncle and aunt left just as it was getting dark and the street lights had made it turn orange outside as we waved goodbye. My father stood in front of the coal fire warming himself and he said its going to get cold as he rubbed his hands. So vivid and I checked my memory with my mother about 20 years later to see if I'd imagined it. Something so pleasant with that memory and the snow in the garden was soon above my head as I played in the snow.
I was the same age in 2010 which was also fantastic! My late dog who sadly passed away this March was just a puppy then and he absolutely loved the two months of constant snow in 2010! I dream of going back to that time even though it's a lot more recently than 1963! Winter 2009 was brilliant too - it was two amazing Scottish winters back-to-back! I really hope I get to experience a winter like 2009 and 2010 again. The Beast from the East in 2018 was good but not on the same level.
I was only a young child at the time but I remember waking up every morning and looking out the bedroom window at all the snow for months on end and being fascinated by all the thick frozen ice on the insides of the window that was smooth but bumpy and in ridges for some reason . In all the upstairs rooms this ice stayed on the inside of the windows all day and night long . So cold , but I miss it and those times so much . People seemed to have so much more time for each other in those days .
How could I not forget the freeze of ‘63. I was married in February 1963 and there was deep snow everywhere. Yet I wore a light coat, hat and high heels plus cotton gloves for the marriage and never felt in the least cold. I remember falling on top of my husband because the pavements were so slippery. The cold weather and snow never inconvenienced me one bit. Oh to be young, healthy and happy.
I would settle for being healthy & happy 🤕
My father was a small farmer in the fens. He could not get machinery onto the fields to harvest sugar beet. He tried having men dig them by hand with a tractor and small hod on the back to move the beet to the edge of the road for collection for the sugar factory. It was so bad the crop was damaged and he gare up trying to harvest them. He had to plough in the bulk of his produce that year.
Yet one summer between then and 1967 we had a scortching but late summer and I recall working 14 hour days for three weeks on end with no break to get in the corn harvest. We didn't call it climate change we just knew that weather in Britain was prone to variation season by season, even week by week.
NO such thing as man made global warming.
Remember it well,ice on the inside of the windows,outside toilet freezing cold,more eiderdowns and coats on the bed with a hot water bottle.Amazingly,schools didn't close and we had to get there by walking.I remember opening the back door and finding a total wall of snow had banked up,had to dig my way out into the yard so we could get to the loo!Sadly now they think they've got bad weather when they have to clear a path! For anyone who doubts that we were tougher and less namby pamby,just look at this.
Then there was the school milk, which they just left in the play yard, frozen solid in winter and yuk lumpy in the summer LOL
If we have three millimetres of snow every school in the country will be in lockdown
John Thorpe these days even if there is a few snow flakes they CLOSE all the schools.They don't want kids to take any risks so that later in life they will rely on government to look after them with strings attached of course.
I was just over three, but remember the hot chocolate for supper and being tucked up tightly in bed, with a hot water bottle. Rest of house very cold. Draughty windows. No heating in house, except the occasional oil filled radiator and the coal/log fire in the living room. We went out in wellies to play/work on the farm, returning with socks that had disappeared around the cold toe ends of the wellies.
My father had to sort frozen water for his livestock, then their food of course. He was fit and strong, but exhausted.
I can still remember it well, I was six at the time. I love these old scenes, and I also love the music, which I believe is Mahler's symphony number 5 in C sharp minor. Just wish I could turn back the clock. So much.
me to ! Where Marty and the Doc and the Delorean when you need em?
@@mikedestiny4122 Are you sure its symphony number 5 in C sharp minor ? sure I heard a B flat in there
It was not due to C02 The cold snap as it was called then lasted for weeks.
@@gillianmason4198 your right, even though 80% of homes in the uk were lovely coal fires, many with back boilers which we had. C02 remained stable, until industrialisation really went overboard and forest fire burns, meant less c02 was being absorbed.
@@gillianmason4198 MONTHS----till April in the South West
Remember it well, we were in one of the iron houses in Dudley, there's one in the black country museum, it was so cold water would freeze solid in the bedrooms at night, never complained or thought of ourselves as hard done by, milk left on the doorstep would freeze and push the tinfoil top off, we kids were hard as nails and loved every minute of it.
Try turning up the volume on the music please, i can still hear the narration - but, only just !
Still at school and walked every day no central heating then
Me too 👍🏼
Same here, also , inside the windows, all frosted up , happy days, not , central heating now , thankfully. If I remember, it was on boxing day when it started.
It started on Boxing Day 1962 and lasted until the end of March 1963. A friend of my father's Wolseley 680 froze up on it's radiator putting that out of use, my father's car an Austin was seriously damaged in an accident at Earls Court so that was out of use. No central heating so "Jack Frost" in bedrooms.
I had to walk to school through the drifts in short pants!
Those were the days when the coalman worked overtime to make sure we had enough supply to heat the sitting room which also gave you constant hot water.
The bedrooms and bathroom were so cold in the winter months.
used to get washed in front of the fire if it was too cold.
I would be sent with a large can to get a gallon of parrifin to heat the parrifin heater which would be stood in our bedroom when temperatures were extreem during the night.
schools never closed in those days and you just went about your normal daily routine snow or no snow.
Also you had more white christmasses in those days and we used to walk across the fields for a mile to midnight mass and back home again afterwards.
That was life in West Yorkshire like every other place in the UK.
Paraffin heaters were the heaters you used in larger houses. we had a large 4 bed house, cos mother did letting in summer. But both the main hall, and long landing upstairs, need one heater down and one up. But the smell went they ran out of paraffin and burnt the wick was Horrible . Guess who took two gallon cans to the ironmongers every other day, with our house number on it haha..! we had 4 fireplaces, But only used the main living room one as it heated the back boiler, no cold water in our house, and electricity wasn't used for much in the sixties, no tvs or ps4 or alexas or electric heaters. Just gas and coal.
Paraffin heaters...The Hardware shop smelled of it...The heater in out hallway where the blue flames twirled in a circle...but the damp heat they gave off...Not so good.
Central heating is bliss in comparison...With a log burner for 'fun' on cold days.
I was 6 at the time, and the day the first snow fell, I built a snowman with my brother and my Dad. We rolled up snow in a huge ball, added another for its torso and a third for its head. A few days later the temperature fell to about ZERO Fahrenheit, and turned the thing into 'super' ice, and it didn't finally melt until July 1963. I still have twinges of guilt, because we had to bash the last remaining bit with a spade before it finally melted!
Thank you Zulqar. What beautiful film footage and tasteful choice of accompanying music!
Thank you Alfred for the compliment, but it is not my work, it is the late Eric Alvin and his wife
I was 10 at the time, and I remember the water pipes freezing, and my Dad putting candles underneath them to try and stop them freezing, then when they thawed out, the problem of them bursting was also a worry, as the pipes were then made of lead..and would expand.
I still remember this, I must have been 11yrs old. As far as I can recall, schools didn't close.
Not like nowadays, where even a forecast of snow can close a school.
I was ten at the time as well, (well, eleven come February when the freeze was still on) and remember it clearly.
i remember walking about a mile to school in deep snow wearing wellingtons. we don't produce the same sort of people thesedays sadly
tectorama Same here , it had to be blooming bad before we got off school , here in Aberdeenshire it was really bad for while, the council had ex army Mack trucks left behind when the Americans went back after the war , they would push through the deepest of snow , it would grind to halt if thes winters came back .
You had to walk to school only one car in the family. It was so cold your hands hurt so much when they began to warm up.
@@gillianmason4198 Oh yes! I remember that the terrible burning ache of the sudden warm up.
Cold water from the tap helped, but so agonising. My little brother screamed with pain, his little red hands like scarlet bruised starfish.
Bedrooms used to be freezing in lots of homes til even the early 1980's in winter.
Oakleaf700 Bloody right they were, the softies now would never survive .
@@elizabethtaylor9321 The Radiator in my bedroom has NEVER been turned on, in 37 years. I have double glazing and good insulation, but don't like a heated room. Perhaps winter's like this and 1947, toughedned me up.
We used to have frost on the inside of the glass thans to both metal window frames and heating upstairs
Oakleaf700 : My brother and I used to get jammies off and school uniform on while still under the blankets. I went to watch Charlton Athletic play their cup match 12 times before it actually went ahead. Snow piled up on London streets until well into April.
@@stevetaylor9846 I was a toddler at the time, and remember snow piled high above my head...And the cold nipping my toes and fingers in my pushchair!...
What is really nostalgic, My mum died young in 1962, but dad remarried.... And my ''new'' mum now lives maybe 20 yards from the first house we lived in...
My neighbours, bless them, {now `RIP'} never heated their bedroom, and had storage heaters right up until the end....
But they lived to Eighty plus and Ninety plus, so it did them little harm.
We had a 1600's cottage in the 1970's, and that was truly FREEZING. An inglenook that sounds romantic, but in the mornings with an icy blast coming down the chimney before the fire was lit... ugh!
But nowadays people keep houses far too hot. My luxury sometimes in cool evenings is to have the woodtburning stove on, and a window slightly open...fresh air yet direct heat.
RIP Mr Alvin. This was the year I was born, in Norfolk. Dad shot masses of cine film, he captured lots of life with his beloved cine camera, one day I'll upload it, when I find out how to do so haha...
You can always contact me, directly as I knew Alvin form the Cine club.
And saw many of his films. I have two more on my channel by Eric.. Around Epping 1973 - 1982, Harlow New Town. he was a dedicated documentary maker.
l remeber it well. this was not only the coldest winter on record but it was the year l got married, so l will never forget 1963. and l am still married to the same man
Yes my dad and mum still married for about 58 years very long time...i am still young and unmarried at 49 i know my dad and mum were married in '59 just before that year!
I too, married same year, still together❤️
1963 was the year my father died, May 19. I was going on 13. In January of that winter ('64) we had a big Sunday blizzard (1/13 IIRC) of about 8" and wind gusts hitting 50. It only lasted a few days though; by Thursday or Friday most of the snow was gone.
I think it was made famous because of the length it remained cold, close to 3 months after the first snow fell before some places were starting to thaw out.
It was certainly the worse winter in terms of how long it lasted, we'd had slightly colder winters but they didn't blanket most of the country with snow for several months, they only lasted a week or two.
I'd sooner have 2 weeks with it dropping to -15 than 8 weeks with it dropping to minus 10.
What I remember most was there seemed to be no flies, and hardly any bird's, the air was very clean and fresh, back then cars kicked out deadly exhaust fumes, many vehicles weren't around and the air quality seemed to vastly improve
there was a mini ice age in the 1700s crops failed for years and famine was rampant
Good old days ,,,and we went to school every day no matter what the weather ,,,
We always had ice on the INSIDE OF THE WINDOWS 🤣🤣😂🤣😂BUT WE WERE HAPPY
Started snowing on Boxing Night and stayed freezing until April.
And, by heck did it snow..!!
That's what my Dad said a couple of days ago we were remembering days gone by. Small hill farm in Shropshire and my parents were snowed in from Boxing Day until the end of March. No vehicular access for quite a while and Dad had to walk over the snow to the pub to collect groceries. Even so they had to kill a couple of laying hens for food. He dug out the lane with a tractor and back link box and I've seen photos of the wall of snow some 5 foot high on either side of his cut through.
Yes I was about 10 at the time and delighted to see the carpet of snow on our lawn, here in south east Essex. Someone had shoveled a huge mound of icy snow outside our primary school and it didn't melt till Easter.
Great footage of a real winter. I was only 8 years old at the time but remember the trudge to school and back each day on slippery pavements.
Yep, I was there too. Mum & dad, myself and my two brothers travelled from our home in Heathfield Road, Bromley to visit dad's sister, Maud and uncle Horry (Horace) Dalton, in their Prefab in Kidbrooke, South London on Boxing Day 1962. While we were there, sometime in the afternoon or early evening it started to snow, marking the start of the long deep freeze of 1963
I remember this vividly. The fountain in the town centre froze overnight ...the sprays frozen in mid air. The milk bottles froze on the doorstep. I had to chip ice off the inside of my bedroom window. The school waterpipes froze and the janitor was sent up to the loft with a blowtorch. Unfortunately he torched the gas pipe by mistake and the roof caught fire!!!
Awww, Real fires and candle wick bed spreads, long time ago now. :(
When the fireplace provided more than just physical heat, it warmed the soul.
@@gehlen52 the hours i spent lost in that coal fire.... you're so right.😊 The armchair pulled up close. And then the shock of getting a burning coal shot into your lap! 😁
I remember nan encouraging us as kids to look into the fire. Stared for ages while she described the grotto shapes in the embers and told us fairy stories. "Go on your XBox" is all most get now!
All night burners with boiler at the back for the hot water.
@@MOGGS1942 *_Luxury_** we 'ad to 'it each os with 'ammers 'til dru blud to kep 'arsesels from freezin' to deth !*
No school closures then because all our parents were at work in the Factories shipyards or on the fishing fleet.So our teacher got us to walk along the sea front to Pakefield Church in Suffolk 2 miles to do brass rubbings to keep warm! I was 11. I remember the snow fall had stopped and it was a briliant sunny day.. but the sea had frozen for quite a distance thats how cold it was.. we were amazed to see a large conger eel frozen , its head out of the water as if it was trying to escape the cold. Our house had very thin windows, they froze on the inside. our pipes burst and I remember my Mum sitting in the lounge amidst the devastation crying her eyes out. Bad times- we still had not fully recovered from events 20 years before.
A
I remember that period vividly, we lived in Chadwell Heath, Essex. My dad helped my brother (5 )and I (6) build a snowman in the front garden. We happily pelted each other with snowballs, the traffic was almost none existent, so we could slide up and down the High Road to our hearts content. Hands frozen, but enormous fun. I don't recall being cold, always thought of it as being magical!
We lived in North Staffordshire and had recently moved to live some distance from our schools, 4 miles in fact. As the buses weren't able to run we were made to "wrap up warm" and walk to school and back again. We did this every day until the snowploughs cleared the roads. We were made to set off early to make sure that weren't late for school. None of our schools were closed
This video brings back the memories of that awful winter
I remember this. It started to rain heavily on Boxing Day . In the late afternoon the rain turned to snow and didn't stop for days, then froze. I started work on 1 January and had to cross over a canal that still had ice on it until end of March. I don't remember being cold though. no central heating. Perhaps we've gone soft.
Excellent use of later radio voices from other harsh winters cut to the real images of '63. Most enjoyable.
Our farm in Dorset was cut off for three months , but we made our own electric and had a spring that never froze. We managed to get out with a horse drawn sled to get basic supplies (flour and tea) The xmas turkey was made to last in various forms that usually ended as soup! After the thaw we had the Lister startomatic generator services as it had run three months non stop , the service and fuel bill came to £11-10/6 (£11.52) The Old man (DAD ) played hell and asked for a discount!
£11 was 3 weeks wage I would of wanted a discount.
Great years were the late fifties and early sixtees. Many happy childhood memories.
I was sent to the shop 3 MLS away as we were out of things. Decided to cut across the fields to knock off a mile. Gale force wind came up with blowing snow and I could not see a thing. There I was stranded in a complete whiteout. I got myself turned around, and even though I was only a short distance from our cottage I couldn't see anything. Finally it cleared for a minute or two and I found the drystone wall, following it to the gate and back home. Mum said I had been gone almost two hours, and I reckoned I had gone less than a mile. For a 13 yr old it was very scary. Was
Wow great story
I can remember my dad’s old greatcoat on the bed.
david shepherd Same here..it was so cold.
was he still in it?
I was in north london as a child and the snow was over a foot deep never seen the likes again, you get a few snow flakes in london now panic takes over.
Notice how i mentioned snow flakes
Only they're twenty foot deep now!
@@OlanKenny you sound lke an expert
I was 1 that year and my parents also had a 3 and a 5 year old! How they must have struggled to keep us warm and fed! No Pampers then, poor mum had to soak towelling ones! The good thing was my grandparents parents and aunt and uncle and baby all lived in the same house and I suppose helped each other to get through this time. I think we are too soft now and would find it very hard and inconvenient if we had that amount of snow now!
Cecilia Tiller I was 1 also!!
😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
Good job we can't remember that winter!!!!
I was 16 at the time and working in a garage. Holding a spanner was a bunch of laughs, and when you bashed your knuckles on something, the air was soon warmed up.
1963 I was a rent collector in Basildon in Essex. I had a 2 hour bus ride to work, no heaters in the buses in those days then trudging around in the waist deep snow. I got frost-bite and by the Wednesday I couldn't walk any more.
This takes me back. In fact, it seems like only yesterday. I was living in Swansea, but working the other side of Cardiff. Every morning I was picked up at 06.30, four of us made the journey East. We got through every day without incident. Not too much traffic around, but no motorway to help the journey. The return home in the dark was a bit more scary. It was so cold.
Those cars running thru the snow.modern cars with all the gadgets couldn't cope in that
Ah yes, I remember it well. It was magical to awaken to that snow at Christmas, but after weeks and weeks, it was all filthy and we were all sick of it..!!!!
Agreed. It was great at the time, but two months into that freeze, getting about normally was still impossible, sledges were sold out, bought home paraffin in cans on a home sledge made out of one of mums old serving trays. school was all inside, no fresh air, snowball fights were banned in playground eventually as was making slides. It got very weary approaching March, fed up with trying to take the dog out in evening, as by then pavements were solid ice again. By mid march it relented at last. But one council made huge ball of snow 15ft by 15ft, took until the start of April to actually completely go away, yep dirty or slush, got into your shoes and splashed mud on your trousers...!!
Yes that is correct and it lasted almost until Easter.@Jack Warner
I remember it. I was seven. The road up to the village snowed in faster than it could be cleared. The drifts were stunning .It became just a pathway for three weeks. My mother was not perturbed. She had a months supply of home preserved food in the pantry. If this happened today I really worry that the consequences would be very serious.
What a wonderful video, l remember that year and the snow. There were 8 children in our family and we had a good time making snowman and having snowball fights. Dad had to walk 9 miles to work and same back, people then we're a different breed back then. 😊🐱🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
Well done Doe Harris 🏴🏴🏴🏴
Our house was actually freezing....I was 5 in 1963. Amazingly harsh winter that I'll never forget.
I was 18 years old at this time.I was at University In Nottingham.I came home for my birthday (Big mistake)We were stuck on a train on Harringworth Viaduct,as the diesel locomotive failed.We were rescued by a steam Locomotive.We just got on with it,we survived and lived to tell this tale.
If these winters come back Britain will grind to halt , back then we just got on with it, pardon the pun ! But there wasn’t many snowflakes back then .
Surely the issue was that there were too many snowflakes! And there aren't enough now!
Not true. Councils learned and are much better prepared nowadays.
Ian McGreevy you are joking I hope , first bit of snow and everything grinds to a halt , school buses won’t run , TO RISKY ! Snowploughs aren’t out on the roads until 7 am if your lucky unless it’s a main trunk road , I’m old enough to remember the winters of the late fifties and sixties , six feet of snow with drifting , water pipes frozen for days on end , now , 2 “ of snow and it’s made out to be Armageddon , no I’m afraid the softies of today would never cop with what we did .
We also had reliable electricity supplies then.
This was 3 years before I was born but I can even remember to waking and seeing ice on the inside of my bedroom wall and that was in the early 70's..
I was seven at the time....I remember the milk on the door step freezing, It burst the top off creating a tower of frozen milk .
Phil Stewart And the blue tits used to peck at it lol.
Remember it well
Not seen this video before, very good brings back memories, we still carried on, think I thought it was a challenge ! Pity about the dramatic music .
Snowy scenes of skiing and sleding joy with a funereal soundtrack. Very stoic. Very British. 😁
Yes, I like Mahler, but not as background noise.
Bloody awful.
Yes, over the top!
I remember this winter very well I lived in Gloucestershire my brother and I had to walk on the stonewalls either side of the road to go to school the drifting on the road was so deep unfortunately schools did not close in them days
I remember this...as a toddler...snow piled high..the music suits, I think. My mum was killed by the fog december 1962..a very hard winter. 1962/3
I was in Comprehensive school during this winter in 1963. It had been built 2 years earlier and had modern buildings and a huge boiler house that heated to school. Only those travelling in on school buses left early
My late parents both went out to work every day on public transport that ran to time table in Liverpool with the corpy always nightly gritting to main roads. People back then seemed to just get on with things, and showed resilience that may have overflowed from world war 2.
What would the media say or government do if, heaven forbid, we had another three month big freeze like 1963.
Or for that matter a repeat of 1976 when we had a three month heat wave.
I was six. No heating in my prefab bedroom. Only a hot water bottle and socks. Don't remember suffering too much! 😁
At prep school in Yorkshire Michaelmas term, the PE master (ex Para Regt) got us boys to bank up snow on a hillside to create a mini ‘Cresta Run’. We sledged down it at great speeds for weeks. No gormless liberal health and safety crap, no crash helmets, no hi-tech fabric clothes, just lots of energy and a bit of courage. The ‘Cresta ‘ was still there at Easter. Happy days -
Those magnificent ice ''Slides'' in the playground caused by rubbing soles of shoes on the frosty ground... Til they gleamed in the light.
then run....and sliiiiiddddddeeeee... Sure we fell over, but nowadays ice slides are banished by health and safety in case a parent sues the school.
My word , that takes me back. I was 15 at the time and lived in Rowhedge near Colchester.
My Brother was mate on the Thames barge Varuna. She was trapped in the sea ice in the Hythe (Docks) in Colchester. For several weeks.
I was told the sea was frozen solid for ten miles out to sea.
I was only 7 but have vivid memories of this winter. Not least of which was the zero insulation offered by a pair of wellies and hand knitted mittens!! 57 years on, all nice and cosy with the central heating on on in October can't help wondering how we all survived it was so damn cold ice on the windows inside and out all huddled around the paraffin heater in the kitchen in the mornings trying to get warm while mum or dad got a fire going in the harth.
At age 23 pregnant with my first child it moved to the north of Scotland and experienced similar weather every winter right through the 80s .
I love how this video is says Heathrow Airport was closed until at least lunchtime 😂😂 it was only a few years ago when we had an inch of snow the airports were closed for 2 days!
I remember it well. I was at RAF Oakington in Cambridgeshire, snowed-in. As most bases were.
I’m feeling cold just watching this , I was only 1 but remember my parents and grandparents talking about it years later x
i love how folk are saying stupid stuff like "-19'c isn't cold for me". Ofc, it's not, but then -60'c would be mild for Antarctica on a balmy winter's night. And again, -1'c would be a disaster in Miami! Please don't think it's a competition, severe weather is situation and relevant!
I knew a Canadian girl, lived in London in the 1970's and she said she's never been as cold as here..the damp cold and the crap insulation of old housing made winters icy .
Thanks, I agree. I was in the US Navy in 12/68, a staff car driver for the Pacific Fleet HQ. One morning I had a trip at about 5am; the temp was around 62. Being raised in Illinois that was nothing, but wearing a white cotton uniform and not being used to it after 9 months there, my teeth chattered. I wanted to get out my blues! 4 hours later it was in the high 70s.
-19 c is cold in anyone’s eyes. Anyone who says it isn’t is a Goddamned liar!
PLEASE - upload this again WITHOUT the overpowering soundtrack. I think most people would prefer to hear the narration.
My family had been to the theatre in London on Boxing Day. As my father drove home it started snowing, and the damn stuff hung about for 3 months!
I was 8, the huge coal burning stove in the classroom, .......Mums endless supply of porridge and soup (strangely I still like both!), ...................... the rough ride and noise of the snow chains on Dads Ford Anglia van, ...........my sister and I had duffel coats, .............and we both still did the mile + cross country walk to school with Mum, .....................Dad had some ex Navy Watchkeepers coats which were put on us kids beds as extra blankets on really cold nights (effectively ''pinning us down to the bed'' they were that heavy.)
Extra vitamin C and malt extract for us kids every day, home knitted ''seaboot stockings'' mittens and balaclava helmets for us all (get shot as terrorist today!) .and a home made sledge we dragged everywhere.
I was 16 and living in the Vale of Evesham. I remember it well. I earned quite a bit helping the local farmers with their livestock.There were pigeons just dropping dead as they flew , through the cold and starvation. The snow drifts were up to the eaves on some of the exposed houses.
Poor birds and livestock..must have been so hard on them..as well as us..
wildlife suffered very badly in that Winter, loved seeing new programs showing Sir Peter Scott from Slimbridge feeding the hundreds of migrant geese and swans.
I remember this like it was yesterday
Music for too loud so can't hear what is being said many times. Good video ruined
Yes, really irritating.
Remember it well,doing my apprenticeship in Lancaster Ford garage, this was cold but ,,would love to do it all again,, good days,
I was eight and there were 9 foot drifts of snow down the lane to our house in Essex. It went on for months and I remember thinking, 'will it ever end'. People walked miles to keep up their routines.
I was 5 yrs old & vividly remember loads of snow in my Grandparents garden nr Tonbridge in Kent!
My first winter working on a farm in Derbys ,.Never forget it ,worked there for five years before coming to NZ
Everything from NZ was frozen , especially their lamb, must be the coldest place on earth
I was 13 living in Liverpool. We made a skating rink on the lawn and played ice hockey. Didn't miss a day of school. But when the snow melted the lawn was damaged.
I didnt think the North West got any of this.?? my hometown in Sussex got the lions share of it along with kent, as we were closest to the finger numbing easterlies at that time?
Thanks so much for posting this.
Thank you for the posting. Nostalgia fest. My first term at boarding school aged 10.
No one with skis in Liverpool Remember the ice on the inside of the windows and the coats on the bed
Lots of Epping Essex views. I was almost ten and living in Harlow Essex and can recall opening our front door to be confronted by a wall of snow higher than our letter box, We still went to school though . My brother and i earned quite a sum clearing people`s paths over the weekends. Happy days.
Boys at my prep school still required to wear shorts and garters every day of the week and on Sundays. No allowances made for the cold then. Try enforcing those rules nowadays.
The winter of '62 - '63 was my introduction to the UK having lived in Kenya up to that point. It was made all the more interesting by staying in a Tudor house where the only heating was the front room coal fire and the bedroom sash windows were a rattle fit.
poor you
@@MrDaiseymay Not a bit of it - it taught me to be as tolerant of cold as Kenya had for heat. Am now quite happily living in the Peak District in an old stone place that could only be heated in the winter if you set it on fire.
I was 12 at the time, walked 2 miles to school , and it didn't close either !
And me! No snowflakes then, ( no pun intended ) we just got on with it. An inch of snow now everyones' off work, schools closed, hospitals inundated.
We had ice on the inside of the windows, (no central heating and double glazing then!).
Up in the morning and light the fire, or stay in bed as long as poss, then up and straight out.
I was 15 at school, in Eastbourne. the sea froze around the pier, the Downs impassable, 8 feet drifts in the country, 12 feet in kent, that actually buried trains after being abandoned. Three months it went on until March 1963, with the first snow falling heavily in London On boxing day 1962, after a really damp rainy mild start to December. We also walked to school in 2 feet at least on pavements, my fathers milk float and the few cars that were about all had snow chains, houses with the usual lead water pipes froze solid in attics and easily burst, meaning fire crews were kept busy knocking down lethal 4 feet icicles.. which in those days insulation was not really developed like today. How ever our dog loved it, and rubbed his nose in 1 foot of snow in our garden. Dustbin lids had 13 inches of snow on them. We had so much snow three of us made an igloo, enough for three people to get in. our teacher gave us some pastels, and we painted what cave men would have scrawled many thousands of years ago. What made it possible to survive, was that stores were local, we had coal fires, gas for ovens and electric, when it didnt get cut off. No one drove, cars weren't used in winter, my fathers was put on black in December 1962 and covered up, it was only in late March 1963 that we saw our car again. We went to school normally, school snowflakes wasnt known, if you were late, you got a prefect on your back. I only remember one time at 3pm in the science lab that overlooked the playground, that a white our occurred, and we soon had a message we could go home early, Early, as in an hour and half early. My school day was 8.30am to 4.15pm. that was already pitch dark, and freezing. We lost a lot of wildlife that year, 90% of the Wren population was wiped out. while my mums bird table had to be filled three times a day to feed so many birds trying to stay alive.
The first TV broadcasts from Slimbridge Wetlands and wildlife trust, by Sir Peter Scott showed hundreds of Bewick and Hooper swans being fed in the early evening.
One shudders to think how modern Britain , relying on electricity only and using cars in the winter would possibly survive another 1963.? And to top it off, there's a lot of wind farms now, that would grind to a halt, because heavy snow on the blades would cause serious overheating of the mechanisms, plus other components may freeze solid. I woke to frost inside my bedroom window, as only sash windows then, no double glazing then!....scraping the amazing designs off the inside of the window was wierd, but quite normal then.
@@mikedestiny4122 your post is just fantastic, I was 8 in 63 and what you wrote brings back many memories for me, yes it was hard, but I would not swap my 60s childhood for any other decade.
Yep i was 8 and at school in taunton and we just walked and without our mum,s and dads . Coats on beds no heating only one coal fire. Pipes frozen ,milk climbing out of the bottle and us kids pushing milkmen and bakers up the hills . How different things are now
@@gbwildlifeuk8269 you were lucky, I lived in a hole in the ground, with a family of 10--and no TV
It really was nuts I was eleven at the time and walk to school something children no longer seem to do.My parents had to walk 3 miles each way to work.this meant no nice hot fire to come home to and it lasted 3 months I lived in Hertfordshire at the time
I remember this well for many reasons.
i was 8 & living in derby,no school for ages,snowmen,sledging,snowball fights,& making ice slides,perfect!
Yes it was a great time for kids-I was 9 at the time. But now I wonder what sort of struggle it must have been for adults trying to keep their homes warm and get food in.It never got warm in our house as we only had a coal fire which never really warmed the room let alone the rest of the house.Getting up in the morning was a nightmare as the whole house was like living in a fridge with thick ice on the inside of the windows.I wonder how we would cope now without the likes of central heating,double glazing etc.Yes it was a great time for kids...
kevin heming I was doing a paper round , morning and evening, as I had just turned 13. I think in hindsight it did me good, as it has been quite a tough life so far but I have managed quite well ( I think ! )
michael berry Yes I did 2 paper rounds as well when I was 13 in '66.I remember how cold it was that winter as well but no big freeze like '62.
Sadly the work ethic has now disappeared because we have now moved into the "Pussy generation". A paper round bought me my first motorbike and I got to work on it every day during the "Big Freeze" and really it wasn't that bad. Life can throw much worse shit at you.
Ah Mahler’s amazing Symphony No. 5, this Slow movement is heart breaking.
I was 13 at the time. Went to school in wellingtons. Looked at my school timetable and we were down for P.E. cross country running in the last lesson of the morning and I thought, that's us kicking a football about in the snow. Not only did we end up doing the cross country run, but due to the female P.E. teacher not able to get in, the girls also had to join in. The sick note brigade were made to clear the football pitch by rolling giant snow balls.
I was born in Sunderland in that winter! I still say that baptism of fridged weather set me up to handle pretty much anything life has thrown at mean in the intervening 56 years!
The plumbers had a lot of work that winter. Our water pipes froze and burst on at least two occasions. Coal fires and back boilers , no central heating roof insulation or double glazing . It lasted from December till May !. Probably Britain's longest period of winter weather ever , worse than 1947.
The big freeze lasted from boxing day 1962 to well into March and there was still SNOW and ice around in April
I remember it well, I was 11. we lived on the Suffolk Coast. Did they shut the school- yes only because they couldn't heat it, out of coal.. But were we allowed home.. certainly not as our parents were all out working back then. Instead our teacher force marched us along the coast 2 miles to a little church at a place called Pakefield, where they has some beautiful brass memorial plates from the 15th Century, so we got busy in the aisle with our black cobblers wax and paper taking an impression of the plate.. that kept us warm. It was a brilliant clear day and the sea had frozen for 50 yards out, with a huge conger eel trapped in the ice as if frozen in time.. When the thaw came all the pipes in our house burst.. I remember my Mum standing in the living room ankle deep in water sobbing her eyes out :(
This is like January to April 2013! So much fun
The footage appears to depict more than one winter as the building shown under construction at 2:57 is shown completed at 5:15 - maybe a classic car buff could shed light on it through the vehicles shown?
Love Radio Clips Remember my Grandmother when she was alive telling about the
Winter of 1963
At the time my dad was only 9 months old when the big freeze started and it has warmed up on his 1st birthday and it’s almost 55 years ago and I first hear the big freeze from my grandad and my dad and always have plenty of food and drink during the big freeze in any colder countries and keep warm 👍
The snow covered our back door and dad had to dig us out to get to the outside lavvy.
i was from Loughton but lived in Harlow and remember 1963 winter well,my car waqs buried in snow for 3 days, We left UK in Feb,14th 1964 for Adelaide, Australia,have not encountered snow since.
never mind
My dad and mum used to live in Dublin during big freeze wintry weather in 1963...very big and snwy weather...i remember my dad and mum used to live there in Sandymount in early sixies...recall my dad and mum used to go out there and here cos it's so cold around -5 Celsius but nighttime dropped to -12 ro under...Brrrrrrrrrr!
Frost flowers thick on the inside of bedroom windows...last saw those in 1981..who sees them now if they have double glazing and central heating?
Oakleaf700 we were told, that was
Jack Frosts Art Work.
I always imagined a little man
doing all those beautiful patterns. 😂
Still get that when the temperature drops to near freezing! Live in the heart of the Peak District.
@@marionmoore665 YES! Jack Frost ❄️ I too imagined him with a wand making the lovely fronds..They are quite beautiful...and scratching them with a fingernail to make a hole to see through :)
@@migranthawker2952 Do you have single glazing and no central heating?...It is since having those we haven't seen the frost flowers ..Bedrooms used to get them the most, maybe as they were unheated, except for a hot water bottle that was gorgeous at 7pm , but like a heavy cold thing at 7am :)
Remember well windows frozen in the inside, no central heating in those days. Freezing cold for months on end.
Great video. Thanks.
I was fast approaching 11 years of age .we built a snow man in december 1962 , it was still standing in march 1963 .
Sam Sum apparently(according to daily express) Britain could be battered by 4 months of snow this winter. Irdk whether to believe it or not
@@Aly_jaf it didn't happen !
Geoffry Llewellyn yeah :(, back then i was stupid enough to believe these lying tabloids.
ha yes, me and three school friends made an igloo side of a house, it was epic. when finished that 3 of us could get in, our art teacher we told we had made a prehistoric igloo, gave us a load of pastels, and told us to draw scenes that caveman would have drawn thousands of years ago, it became our pet project, looking into books for ideas for scenes, the real world I knew and loved was late sixties and seventies on my Lambretta scooter, and then one Vespa ss180 with a girl on the back with flowing hair streaming backwards, such fulfilling and fun times then, and DIY mechanics was king :)
Mike Destiny thanks so much for telling me your story, i am a teenager and your story has interested me. I really hope we could see a proper cold winter again as i am sick and tired of mild winters.
I was 13 at the time. No central heating, ice on the inside of windows and power cuts so no heating at all in living rooms and bedrooms. I lost all my tropical fish. The snow loses its attraction very quickly. And yes, the schools kept open and we still had outdoor sports lessons.
we just got on with it ! no nanny state in those days
The only people who complain about the so called Nanny State are those who have never needed help.
@@2Sugarbears I live at poverty level. Regardless, I don't need the State dictating how I live. I make my own life choices and have never relied on government assistance.
@George Job Is war all you 'we're brave, we're tough' people can think about? No wonder we're constantly under the nuclear threat.
@George Job Strong soldiers aren't needed nowadays. Each side just bombs the other s civilians.
Annie Spencer you obviously didn’t experience it, so you ain’t fit to comment. Just remember, that if they weren’t tough, you probably wouldn’t be allowed to utter inane stupidity like you just have!
I lived in London at the time & there was very little food available. Went to what passed for a supermarket at the time, plenty of washing up liquid & scouring powder but virtually no food on the shelves. A very few tins of very expensive luxury items such as Asparagus & Celery Hearts but nothing else to be had. We had to queue up at the counter to buy the half a loaf of bread allowed per family. It was eaten toasted without anything on it as there was no margerine or jam available. (Butter was unaffordable for the majority of people at the time but that wouldn't have been delivered either. The lorries could not get through.)