I was 7 as well, and lived on a farm, the school bus could only get a mile and a half away from our house so we walked to meet it, would be interesting to see how people would cope if it happened now.
@@jonathanlovell2694I remember being sent home because of the snow. Sadly some children didn’t make it in for months. I also remember people lived local, so walking was not an issue.
@@lpatterson5005we were tough little one in them days boys were boys and girls were girls no one was gluten intolerant, We never cheecked our elders or you would get a clip around the ear. We all ate the same meals, Mums didn’t make different meal for each kid, if you didn’t eat it you went hungry. We played outside from morning until dark, spending time in our bedrooms was a punishment. If it was cold we wore socks on our hands with plastic bags over the top to stop them getting wet for the snow. Omg we had the best of times.
I remember it as a child aged 9 years. It was cold but we were fine with 1 coal fire going.Would love to travel back to those days again with great community spirit and strong families.
I was born 1960, Lancashire, and when I read all the "community spirit" comments I get really sad, my family didn't experience any of that. Why? Because my mum was a German war bride and that did not go down well at all, especially in northern England!
It will never be the same again. To many woke and/or corrupt parasites out there now. Shame but never going to go back to life life that unfortunately.
Aye the coal fire is something I really miss.. only trouble was the chilblains you got when you went in to get warmed up after playing in the snow. My old uncle used to cook all of his meals in a pan that was put on the fire, I remember him showing me how to skin and gut rabbits.. then he would cook rabbit stew for us. My first job was a Coal man and I loved it, even though it was donkey work.. Everyone talked to each other back then and we used to be made to go around shovelling the snow off the old folks paths when we were kids, which is a rare sight these days.
My wifes cousin was moaning that 'Christmas isn't like it was when we were little', she was forgetting that you get out of life what you put into it. Christmas was great because of the effort that her parents put into making it so, not because it was a 'special' time. Community Spirit and strong families comes from you and me, not some mythical times past. As for one coal fire, give me a well insulated house anytime.
I was born in '44 and remember '63 very well. Even the running Brook near our home froze solid. The sea froze at Eastbourne! It just went on until beginning of April. 😊
I too was born in 44,still had to go to work,we wouldn't be paid otherwise.Long,dreadful journeys there and back,so cold traveling by foot and no warmer at home,though mum tried,we burned most of our rubbish.
Much tougher breed of of people back in those days, only needs a slight snow flurry today and the country grinds to a halt. I was 10 years old back in 62 and remember it well, was great fun as a child.
No central heating back then either. I was about 6 . I don’t ever remember any suffering times back then . Just happy times never wanting for anything . Unlike the miserable times of today . I see this and think of my mum and dad . I would go back in time tomorrow if I could have them back. I love and miss them so much.
I was four at the time. Imagine going through all that in a house with no insulation, double glazing or central heating, with only a single coal fire in the living room for heating. We had to dig a tunnel in the snow from the back door to the coal bunker, and be careful with the coal as well as you didn't know when another delivery would be made. I'm glad I was just a kid, it all seemed great fun and a big adventure, but it must have been a nightmare for the adults.
We lived in the middle of the country, and used to chop wood which we left to dry for months at a time. So it was a bit easier for us than city folk. I hate to sound like the Hovis ad, but school was a couple of miles away. I had to walk up a small, single track road. Every time a car appeared, I scrambled up the snow covered banks to let them through. "Our dad used to love that bread"!
At one minute and thirty seconds of your lovely film, there is a photograph of a road sign marked " BLAENAVON" which is the town where I was born in 1945. At the time this photograph was taken, I rode my motorbike from Rochester in Kent to Blaenavon, in order to visit my grandmother who lived there. The journey went from Rochester, to London, and then via the A40 road to Oxford, and at the town of Witney, around midnight, my motorbike lights failed, and a kind police sergeant allowed me and my mate who was riding on the pillion seat of my old BSA, to sleep in the prison cells of the old police station in Witney. At 0600hrs. he chucked us out where we continued our journey to Burford, Gloucester, Monmouth, Abergavenny, and finally in late afternoon we arrived in Blaenavon, to a bowl of lamb stew made by Grandmother. At Monmouth we had two punctures in the tyres, by riding over an exposed manhole cover which was covered in snow, and this made life interesting, to take off the wheels, tyres, and inner tubes and to warm up the glue for the patches on the exhaust pipe in order to get the patches to stick to the inner tube. Our return journey was slow, cold, and found us crossing Rochester Bridge at midnight , where a lovely policeman stopped me and fined me two pounds for riding without lights on my bike, because the snow had filled up the dynamo. The next morning, at 0730 am. I was back at my work, where I was an apprentice engineer, at the now defunct Shorts Aircraft factory on Rochester Esplanade by the river Medway. Tough times in those days, but you know what they say about Men of Kent !!!.
@@cyprusman5908 The bike was a BSA M21 600cc side valve from 1954. Which I named " Emma". She was a good old girl, and we covered more than 45,000 miles without any problems.
@@anthonywilliams6764 They were great reliable plodders that went on forever. Us kids use to buy old British bikes for under £5 during the 1960's and scramble them over the fields. My mate bought a BSA Gold Flash 650cc for £15 and threw the huge watsonian sidecar away ! Happy Days !
I was 5, first winter going to school. No school closures in those days. They did keep us in at break times as it was warmer. Wrapped up in wool coats, hats, scarves, gloves etc jumpers and cardigans on in class, wee cold wet feet. Sensible teachers told us to bring dry socks and sandshoes... Left sandshoe's at school. I went home for lunch every day as I lived 5 mins away... Home into a warm kitchen, big bowl of soup and a hot pudding and back to school with dry socks in pocket... No central heating, coal fire in kitchen electric one bar in bedroom. Bathroom was absolutely baltic.... Bedroom had a carpet but hall and bathroom were linoleum... Oh cold feet. Ice inside windows . My sister and I shared a room.... During this time we shared a bed she was a few years older than me and she had a hot water bottle and I was usually warm... So she was happy... She called me her wee hot pie!!!! As we cuddled together. I am now shivering at the memory of the cold....
Liz, this comment made me smile. I was 5 too, first winter going to school (in Scotland). I had to walk to the primary school, nearly a mile outside the village, wrapped up like an Eskimo. On arrival at school we were allowed into the cloakroom between the two primary-one huts where there was an huge, piping-hot radiator. In the house we had a black cast iron Rayburn range in the kitchen and an open coal fire in the living room. There was no central heating. Upstairs was, as you say, utterly Baltic. Getting ready for bed was like preparing for an Antarctic expedition: hot water bottles were obligatory, I wore a woolly sweater on top of my pajamas, two pairs of thick woolly socks and a balaclava to bed. We had a huge old cat, called ‘Darky Joe the sad old Padre’ (named, I think after a character in a Graeme Green novel, before political correctness was even a concept) who sneaked into my bed and slept at my feet, purring throughout the night. I loved that old cat. He continued to sleep at my feet after the great freeze and lived to be 23 years old. The drainage pipe from the upstairs bathroom froze, and we could not flush the toilet for days. My gran made a makeshift brazier and lit a fire round the cast iron drainage pipe. That eventually melted the blockage, but we were all terrified that the pipe would shatter. One morning my grandfather opened the back door to find a complete wall of snow, up past door height. I had that day off school because it took him hours to dig us out with a tiny shovel. He needed to dig us out so that he could get to the coal bunker where he found that the coal had frozen solid and he then had to dig it out with a pick. Magical memories.
My mother often recalls that winter, she has good reason to. She was 25 and pregnant with me and my twin brother ( although the doctors didn’t know about him until he was delivered 20 minutes after me!). Imagine being pregnant and trying to get to work, the shops, the hospital etc. They were a much tougher generation, they just got on with life with great stoicism. Thank you for showing me what I was protected from.
@@steveyewman I was 7 and remember how freezing cold it was in wellington boots and icy winds - mind you our house was so cold anyway you could scrape the ice off the inside windows!
I remember helping to dig out the milk float that got stuck in our road in Wembley. We also helped the milkman deliver his glass bottles of milk to the homes in our street too. We still went to school a couple of days later 8.45am to 4.00pm Mon- Thurs and 8.45am - 3.30pm Fri. People went to work, they walked even if it was a few miles. Neighbours helped each other out. No big out of town supermarkets then. The local one was a short walk away and we improvised sleds to bring back supplies for those not able to get out. That’s why we remember it as a time we all came together and helped young and old.🎉
@@Known-unknowns No comparison and what is more why did the House of Commons have every living politician in it, at the first, with no masks and no social distancing, preaching to us to wear masks and observe social distancing? Where MP's telling us that they were immune from Covid? MP's were so in our faces with declaring that they were immune that they even held parties in their constituencies, and at No 10, drinking the night away. One thing about living through some of the harshest of time is that you learn to own reality, unlike today, this shallow age that is so superficial it believes everything that it is told. My parents told us children never go near a politician, never listen to a politician as they are liars, and nothing has changed.
I remember it so well. Boxing day 1962. I had a paper round that year and made the most money ever in a week delivering papers. I was the only paperboy who turned up at the newsagents that day and the following few days. Walking through snow drifts, delivering newspapers. It was magical.
Thank you for posting that. Goodness me! What you wrote brought home the reality of life with such a severe cold spell. Somehow the country functioned with the stiff upper lip, not like the cotton wool types of today.
I think it would be harder nowadays, as we were less dependant then, on fragile or " on demand" supply lines for food and fuel. I was only 5 at the time, but I remember some things from that time, such as helping dad get to the coal bunker by digging with my kiddie shovel, and him moving said bunker up the stairs for easier access. Later, in the early 1970's, we had a lot of shortages, due not to snow, but to industrial unrest. But, like in 1963, schools and most workplaces continued as near usual as possible. Power cuts didn't stop schools and offices during daylight hours, as we used pen and paper, or maybe manual typewriters in offices, not computers to do our work, and we had books to study with and get our homework from. ( homework by candlelight !) The only day we were affected by a power cut was near Christmas, when we got let off home half an hour early as it was getting too dark to see our books ! In 1963 most people still had coal fires, and if necessary wood or other burnable stuff could be used, and basic cooking done on the fire. People just put on extra clothing if cold, most didn't have central heating anyway. One of my early school memories was of us all being sent home part way through the day to use the toilet, as the school loos had frozen up ! At 5 yrs old, no waiting for parents to come and get us ! Our parents had gone through ww2, and rationing, and the weather of winter 1947, so were used to making do and keeping going,. I'm sure we would rise to the challenge nowadays, but it would be a tougher adjustment in our society, as our whole lifestyle, even how we pay for food, is dependant on electricity, and internet connections. Russia doesn't need to bomb us, to cause chaos, just zap the cables and signals !!
@@Known-unknownsImagine all the power lines down across the country? No electricity or seriously rationed (if that was a thing). Now imagine your TV, internet, electronic tills, freezers in shops, shops with no lights as they are so large and need electricity or not possible, just-in-time delivery out the window and the power cuts cripple the data supplies. We are so much more dependent on electricity to run our lives than in ‘63.
I was born New Years Eve 1962, my mother had to walk through snowdrifts for several miles in labour before the ambulance could get to her, thank you for the montage, her words never truly described what she went through to ensure I was safely delivered in the local hospital.
Watching this film has brought tears to my eye as my Dad told me when I was born along with my twin sister in Feb 1963 he could not get to Sefton General hospital to visit 2 babies who where very weak and not supposed to survive. He was always sad that he could not get to our Mum either because it was neck high of snow in Liverpool. Myself and my twin did spend many a happy year with them both before they passed. on. Thanks for the post.
I was eight years old that winter, and lived in a Hertfordshire village. Our little primary school was a two mile walk away down country lanes and a river towpath. The school didnt close and I remember sitting in my classroom, wearing my navy blue gaberdine mac and red and white hat and mittens knitted by my mum. Trying to write while wearing mittens was fun (not)! I remember walking on top of the hard frozen snow, ice slides in the playground, making toast with toasting forks over the coal stove, ice on the insides of the bedroom windows (not unusual in winter), snow glittering in the moonlight. We were hardy, full of fun and adventure, and had a warm, loving family, and a warm (two downstairs rooms heated by a Parkray coal stove), happy, secure home. They were good times and I would go back there in a heartbeat. Thank you for the video ❤
What part of Hertfordshire.? My mother and father were from Stevenage they were living in little static caravan down a lane in this winter.how it never killed them I'll never know.. people where much hardier back then.just got on with it.
@@petergates8570 @petergates8570 We lived in Broxbourne. Yes, I think people were hardier and, in some ways, happier in those days! We just got on with it, didn't we?
@@carolineputus1482 yes I think people were happier.my old nan and grandfather where old Romany people living horse drawn wagons.theyd say we could be down a country lane.we didn't know what day it was and didn't care either..they'd say hard life but good life..bought up ten kids lived till 90
@@Scott-up3bq . . . At least people are trying to be pleasant ! On checking YOUR channel it seems that you make an habit of spouting negative comments ! 🙄
I was born on the 2nd Jan 63. Remember my late Father telling me that they had to dig out path and road to get both Dr. and midwife through to aid my delivery. Turned out cord was wrapped tightly around my neck and very lucky to be here thanks to the Dr and midwife.. This was at 24 Trafalgar Rd in Lympstone Devon, luckily my late Father was a Royal Marine based at Lympstone, and believe the RM assisted in clearing roads paths etc.. Looking at the footage , can see how deep the snow was snd how much hard work it took to dig out paths.
I was undergoing the culmination of my Marine Commandos training on Dartmoor when we were hit with the incredible weather. We finished the 3 day escape and evasion course but were informed that a party of Army apprentices had not been heard of for 2 days. So we searched the area where they were last seen for 2 days, bivouacking in the snow, and then were informed that they had been found in a small abandoned training camp, safe and sound. It was a very realistic survival training experience but on passing Commando course I was sent to the jungles of Sarawak! From one extreme to the other!😅
I was a sixteen year old apprentice walking to work at the colliery through this every day , we had worn a path through it every day which got filled in every night with drifting snow…our job was to keep braziers going next to large pumps to keep them working pumping water out of the mine to prevent flooding…it was an amazing time…John.
Same age as yourself, worked in a coal yard bagging coal, and delivery it around the local houses, loved every minute, people where so kind, thankful, and generous.
I agree; even though life in general was harder, it was much more fulfilling as we had one another. The elderly were cared for regardless of personal shortcomings, and the warmth and generosity from the majority of people was what made it special. Today, we have drones, morons who walk about with their heads buried in a small, black screen. Such are the times of today where people would rather film someone getting stabbed than intervene to stop it. Men are not the same, which is shameful tbh.
@@deathonawhitehorse Mostly back then, we lived in tight knit communities, where everyone looked out for everyone else. Then came the bulldozers and tower blocks that were filled not with one demolished street at a time, but with people from a wide area, so communities became broken up. And then came migration and more migration . . .
friendly if you where a White English Christian Man, but a very racist, homophobic and sexist time, medical care was far worse and you where expected to "make do" and STFU , dont complain, Yeah Great time !
I was 12 years old in 1962-1963 Big Freeze and i can remember that winter. As an active birdwatcher since 1958. I do know that half of the UK wild bird population died in that winter! But every night after school all of my friends and myself enjoyed going out sledging after school which never closed and all day at weekends as well as snowball fights. Thanks for that film. 🌞🌞🌞
I remember it well, I was 15. We woke to Dad complaining there was no water coming out of the taps, he went outside to look at the Dow pipes and gasped, they were covered with ten inches of ice. It grew to double that and started to melt on March 8th a few days after my birthday, that’s how l remembered to day. How resilient we Brits we’re back then.
Made of harder stuff than this lot today. Tough times you naturally were one with. I had never seen such snow, and to walk to school with snow taller than you were was amazing. Everything seemed so quiet, as though the earth stood still and animals staid silent, so silent
😊 started school 1947 little girls never wore trousers so cold legs and damp feet, used to sit on the pipes at school to keep warm. Made a hood out of a woolen scarf, then to cape it all, got married in the winter of 1962/3. So significant times in my life have been cold weather. Now 82 so didn't do much harm.
Cough! We boys, in shorts, were cold, but ignored the cold, even our beds were freezing, and you had to stay in one position to warm that patch up, and hope you would fall to sleep before you felt like moving.
I was 15 at the time and lived in the East Midlands. Our Edwardian house was extremely large and we were fortunate enough to have had a new solid fuel boiler fitted in the cellar the previous autumn for the central heating. My father had chosen to leave his family a couple of years before and it was left to me to keep that boiler going 24/7 otherwise the house would have frozen - and so would we! I can recall seeing coke burning in the chamber. The noxious fumes were dreadful but it kept us alive. Cleaning out the residue was quite some task. Once we even managed to afford (somehow) to have anthracite - which burned almost white hot - and left hardly anything behind. Even with that heating going 24 hours a day the windows froze on the insides - the ice about a quarter of an inch thick. I still walked to school somehow every day - almost two miles - with some roads having drifts about 12 feet high. You often could not see the houses behind the snow. The schools never closed in my town. You battled on - and we lived.
Wonderful memories , I can also recall not being able to go anywhere during that time , I was nine then and we lived in Sherwood , opening the door we were confronted with snow that had drifted to the top , we had to dig ourselves out using a small hand shovel , the garden an easy two feet deep in snow. Your mention of stoking the solid fuel boiler reminded me of watching my father raking out the clinker and refilling it. But we got through it, my lasting memory was that there was still ripples of crusty snow by a sheltered wall in June ! Gone but not forgotten.
@@metalmicky Thank you for your memories too, Micky. You obviously had very similar memories to myself. And I recall opening the back door to be faced with literally a wall of snow where it had drifted. It does make us wonder just how we did get through it when children these days are not allowed to even have an icy slide in the playground on which to have some fun. The school could be sued these days if dear little Jason fell over and grazed his knee. I thank you too for reminding me of the word ‘clinker’. I had totally forgotten it. It actually was fairly hard work trying to keep the house at some acceptable temperature as the boiler had to go out and cool down slightly to be able to clear out the debris completely. Anthracite was the answer - but at a considerable cost. It burned so cleanly and left hardly any ash behind. I still remember having to walk down the middle of the roads because that was the only area clear enough to get through (presumably caused by both drifting and any snow ploughs that the Council used). Folk these days would not believe that even with the heating blasting out condensation on the inside of those plate glass windows actually froze on the inside and the ice was, quite literally, a quarter of an inch thick. We live to relate the tale. Many people have suffered far worse. My Mother was pregnant with me in the dreadful winter of 1947. She then, prior to my being born in the August, had to suffer one of the hottest summers on record. I was three weeks overdue and entered this world weighing 10 lbs. 6 ozs. That must have been quite some year for her! (and me, come to think of it. No wonder I cannot bear very hot temperatures - I was probably roasting inside her!). I feel now I have a soul mate!
Not sure what year it was but really bad snow some point in the late 70s, our school said if we can't get there safely don't come so my dad, old git, made a sledge and dragged me to bloody school, I was gutted. We were talking about this yesterday (2.1.24). We lived in Billingham, near Middlesbrough and stockton. Good Times really, kids these days haven't a clue what hardship and resilience really means.
I was 7 years old in 1962, l remember living in a house, in Kent with ice on the outside and inside of the windows, water pipes freezing up and bursting, no central heating no insulation, but some how we managed to carry on. I noticed in the video that a postman was still delivering the mail. People back in 1962/ 63 were made stronger stuff. These days, if more than a few millimetres of snow were to fall on the ground in the U.K., everything grinds to halt. 🌨☃️
@jase6709 That's right, councils don't grit the side streets, the railways get the wrong type of snow on the tracks, people panic buy bread, and milk, shcools close, airport's cancle flights, etc etc ❄️❄️❄️
Although I mostly agree, the main reason everything grinds to a halt now is mainly due to the volume of traffic on the roads (so much more than in 1963) and peoples inability to drive in snow and icy conditions. Health and safety is another issue as well in the modern world, if a 1963 winter happened now you probably wouldn't see a postman for 3 months😂
I was also 7 years old and we lived in West Sussex, a little village called Sompting just a 10 minute walk to the sea front at Lancing, I remember this winter so vividly because I had to go into Worthing hospital just 3 days after Christmas 1962 for my tonsils taking out and we travelled to the hospital by bus along the sea front from Lancing to Worthing and the sea along the shore line was actually frozen , I came home from hospital in the New Year, snow still very much in evidence. My Dad bless him had saved me the chocolates off of the Christmas tree but sadly and much to my annoyance my throat hurt to much for me to eat them lol I so cherish the memories from my childhood, so special. 🥰
I remember standing at a bus stop on the outskirts of Liverpool, holding my dear Mums hand at about 8pm, in the dark, during a blizzard, while the snow piled up around us. I must have been about 9 or 10 at the time. Happy days! Great video, thanks for posting.
I was in my early 20s living in London. I wouldn't have been able to pinpoint it to 62-3 but I do remember there being a really bad winter and doing a lot of trudging through heavy snow. Arriving places on the back of a scooter with icicles hanging off my eyebrows. I remember a London smog around that time too. It was horrific. Later that year I met my Aussie husband and in 1966 I travelled to subtropical Australia with him, which is where I still live. Different set of problems here. Very humid in summer! Like living in a sauna or a hothouse. Thanks for this blast of nostalgia. Cheers.
My wife was born 1st Jan 63. Her mother pushed her in a pram 2 mile to hospital as her husband cut half his finger off at work. What character people had in those days. Few had cars and telephones. Did my mother in law complain no. She had a disabled son as well at home. What a woman. RIP. Always in my thoughts.❤
A generation were we got on with it ,I was born in 63 sept and remember writing my name on the window when it was frozen on the inside ,I wrote it backwards so when I looked up on the way to school I could see mt name imagine that now .
True, they were hard times but nothing out of the ordinary, you simply fitted into them, knew nothing better as there was nothing better. You know what just came into my mind, fruit and veg. Go into the green grocers and the veg you could smell, lovely smell to the vegetables, which is missing today
I lived in South London, went to school as a 10 year old everyday! Shoes always damp then frozen on the walk. Coat on in the classroom. Cold in my mothers house and bed was probably the best place to be! Seemed like the cold went on for ages! Thanks for the memory!
Same here. The playground turned into a giant slide. Our classroom was a temporary building (at least twenty years old!😅) across the playground and our monstrous old teacher Mr.Cook would grab two boys by the shoulder and use them as a human walking frame to avoid falling over walking back to the class after break!🤣
Me too. I remember the council workers shovelled the deep snow off the roads onto trucks and near me dumped on waste ground beside a railway. The mountains of snow remained until the summer and we kids played on them.
I was 8 years old. I remember walking to school in wellies and short trousers with snow up to my knees, my bottle of free school milk was frozen and we stood it on the radiator in the class to thaw it out.! It my be just nostalgia but we seemed to have proper winters and summers back then
Beautiful video. Way better than having someone talking over moving footage. The still pictures, captions, and haunting music capture the very essence of that extraordinary time. Perfect. 👌
I was ten years old when the snow first came. The kids in our street were still on our Christmas break from school. I remember helping parents dig out a channel in the 3 to 4 foot of snow along the crescent road in which we lived to the main road. This allowed the milkman, the baker, the butcher, the grocer, the postman and most importantly the coal merchant to make their deliveries. The gas and electric were never cut off. The only hardship I remember was having to walk 3 miles to school (in shorts, knee stockings, shoes and duffle coats) when they re-opened as usual in the New Year.
Duffle coats what happened to those we all wore them and I remember my gloves on a piece of elastic run through my coat sleeves so I wouldn't lose them
The difference in 1963 was nearly every child walked to their local school (usually on their own) and schools had full time caretakers who could clear paths and playgrounds of snow. I was 10 in 1963 and I walked home (to an empty house) from the age of 8. My mother returned from work an hour later. It would be illegal to do that now.
On day one of the snowfall a small group of us from our village got to school, in Town 3 miles away, crammed in the front of a passing LandRover driving by a local farmer. Most of the teachers didn't make it to school nor did most of the other kids.
I was born January 25 1963. This is the first time I’ve ever here’d of this severe winter. We lived in Sheffield in an old terraced house and the toilet was down through the cellar and across a cobbled yard. My parents must have kept me nice and warm. Thanks mum and dad.
I was 10 during this winter and clearly remember going to school with snow coming over the top of my wellies and making huge long ice slides in the playground. We ran out of coal as the coal lorry couldn't get up the hill so spent many hours in the kitchen with the gas oven on. We had a paraffin heater for the other room. The day mum went down to the shop and they had run out of paraffin was terrible. It's the only time I ever saw my mother cry. The next day the thaw started and the coal lorry arrived. Hallelujahs all round! I can't imagine how we would cope with such a winter in this day and age. Thank you for stirring some precious memories. 😊
Oh the slides in middle of road as long as 20 foot ,oh the great old days as a kids ,we made our own memories, and used our imagination not bloody phone's and computers. And here I am preaching the hood book, using a bloody phone ?
I was 8 years old. We lived on a hill and had a badly fitting front door. The snow blew into our hallway, and there was a small drift inside! We only had an open fire in the lounge and a boiler in the kitchen, Lino on the floor and metal framed windows. It probably didn't help having an open park behind us either. I remember this winter well.
Very nice video, compact but containing a lot of information in the pictures. I'll just say, though, having been a teenager working on a farm in Derbyshire at the time, that although farmers lost livestock, a certain amount of that was accepted every winter, so it's truer to say that they lost more than usual - not quite such a shocking thing. Other trades and professions didn't suffer unduly, because no one thought of staying at home off work. If it was too far to walk to work, normally you cycled or went by bus, and if the snow had temporarily prevented that you just set off earlier and tried some other route or got a lift with a lorry or something that could get through. Only frail or ill people stayed in. Most old folk were hale and hearty and did their part in the snow-clearing most days. Similarly I never heard of any school closing. We all walked to school anyway; snow, no matter how deep or drifted, was no great obstacle for an active scrambling child. We were more likely to be late from spending too much time on the way snowballing or tunnelling in the drifts. Drivers of the far fewer cars that were about then, knew perfectly well how to drive through snow and over ice, because in most winters there was a week or two of that at the very least. If you got your vehicle stuck people just helped to push it or someone would come with an old Series 1 or 2 landrover, or a tractor, and pull you out. We didn't suffer particularly from the cold, apart from achingly cold and wet fingers and toes [sent out to play in the snow with knitted woollen gloves!], and again, this was accepted as a part of every winter, as was admiring and then scraping off Jack Frost's fantastic patterns from the inside of your window panes when you got up every morning [having taken rather longer than usual to get to sleep because of the sheer weight of blankets over you]. Bothersome draughts in the evening when the wind was up also normal; anyway we all sat round the fire - coal or logs - lovely! - and made toast and told stories or occasionally listened to the wireless [radio]. Hardly anyone had a television, not so much because they couldn't afford one, more often because they were considered to be vulgar nasty intrusions taking too much of people's attention away from the harmony of the family. On the whole people just carried on in whatever way they found they could, and stayed cheerful. Having made an allowance for the bias of nostalgia [and being a philosopher and psychologist I think I've done that fairly adequately], I would very happily return to a world where people related to one another in the way they did then. A world that was free and vigorous of speech with no fear of political-correctness zealots, and no absurd controlling of people and unwise manipulations of economies by edicts of stupid politicians in league with dishonest 'scientists' and globalist businessmen. Where possessions were much fewer, and there was a natural hardiness and native resourcefulness that seems to have dissipated now and almost disappeared. None of our super inventions [and I've also been an engineer] are worth the loss of all those qualties. Didn't mean to go on so much, but - such great times! Thank you for the video.
Well said, I survived the 1947 winter. Many babies got gastroenteritis and most of those hospitalised sadly died. My mother kept me at home and saved my life by giving me boiled water, I was born September 46. We moved to Derbyshire when I was 10 and experienced a winter of walking on top of the hedges because the snow was so deep. The villagers had no bread, so a group walked to the next village where they had a Baker, bringing enough for us all. Life is so beyond all that now!! WCL
Bloody loved that post! And thoroughly agree ... and I'm 46,... my nan made me feel like a family member, as time has moved on I too look back with a kind of aching sorrow.... THOSE were the days I felt ALIVE. these days everything seems just .... false, insincere, and rushed. Thanks for your insight, very much enjoyed reading that.
Well said . I was 10 years old and remember being below the snow level . I have rich memories of saturated woollen gloves ,wet feet , and a coke stove in the kitchen , keeping the whole house warm . In the following year my dad bought a Landrover series 2 . 😂
robwilde...wow! I read War and Peace quicker than that..😬...(jokin')...yeah I was there 14yrs old in '63....playing out in that deep snow was absolutely brilliant!...and our school never had to close...like they do today if an icicle is seen on a window cill...
I drove my motorbike to work every day during that winter, through Kent a journey of 22 miles each day, everyone just carried on. The snow on the edges of the road was well over my head with only a single cleared track, it was very scary. What's often forgotten is that the pervious winter was also very bad. Over the new year period of 1961/1962 the whole of southern England came to a halt due to snow. I was in London that new year's eve and the roads around Trafalgar Square were covered with virgin snow, it was a unique sight. By the way we had to walk back home to Croydon Surrey because no transport was running.
I remember those days well, getting to work was the devil of a job but we did it. Experts of the day said we were in for a new ice age and we must reduce pollution to reverse the trend! Powers that be brought in 'clean air acts' and 'smokeless zones'. People had to change from coal fires to gas or electric. Factories and Mills had to only let chimneys smoke for so many minutes per hour, and it worked! Winters got better summers warmer, kids stopped asking santa for a sledge, nowhere to use it! No more 'smog', great. Then mount St Helens, I think it was, erupted, and the weather, certainty in this part of the world took a turn for the worse again. Oh dear, new Ice age on the way again, no, after 3 years, when all the dust fell out of the atmosphere, we started to warm up again and have been doing so ever since but they are still calling for reduced pollution, that's what started the warm up isn't it? Now it seems to me that if your greenhouse gets too hot and you need to cool it, you don't take a wash leather and clean the windows, you take a bucket of whitewash and paint the glass to reduce the effect of sunlight, or is that too simple. I'm no expert, never went to University, just spent 83 years so far, living on this planet watching so called experts messing nature up. What do I know?
I was seven in 1963 and lived in a village in the West Country that was hit really bad. The snow drifted above the top of our back door and the windows. We went sledging every day as the local school was closed because there was no coal for the big cast iron heaters in the classrooms. The headteacher brought homework to us most days! Our house did not have central heating but we did have a Rayburn and my dad used his digger to dig his way out of the village and collect coal from the coal merchants on the main road, so we and the neighbours could keep our fires going. We made sure we fed the birds and the wildlife as so many animals were suffering and unable to find food. When the big thaw came there were floods. Hard times for some, especially the elderly but communities helped each other in those days.
When we went to bed there was frost on both sides of the bedroom windows no central heating then and you could see your breath in the air, mum used to give us hot water bottles and our coats were on the beds for extra warmth and we’d snuggle down. We were fine and never suffered any harm or ill health. A much simpler time then and no pressures or distractions, you just got on with it. HAPPY DAYS .
@@kathythompson2434 It was the same in our house, frost on the inside of the bedroom windows! My mum used to put eiderdowns on top of our covers in the winter and we had winceyette nigtdresses. Hot water bottles were a life saver. I guess we were hardier in those days.
I was 2 , my mum had me wrapped up in the pram, managing to get to the local shops. Coal fire going ,and good stews and hotpots, no double glazing or central heating!! Lovley neighbours ,those days were happy and great community s.x❤❤
Remember it well, I was about 13 and I went on a school trip to Switzerland for a ski holiday, we all felt cheated when we heard about the huge snow falls in the UK, however, we had a wonderful holiday with the teachers of Fair view Secondary Modern in South Wales. When we came back there was still lots of snow but more messy by then. Great memories of our great school.
I was 11 at the time living in Co Durham. It was hard but not even a day off school. People then were a different breed. They had a "can do" attitude, unlike today. Benefit culture has cost us dearly.
Its not that, theres nothing wrong with helping people who are in need. Dont talk like that or you might find yourself in a wheelchair one day as a lesson. The issue now is people have depression and all sorts of dopamine depletion due to technology and drugs (alcohol/coffee) etc. They dont have the same desire that people used to
Thanks for this. I was 8 and with my two sisters, and with local kids who go to the same Primary School, we battled every day to go to school. Our mother tied us together with scarfs, put on our wellingtons and duffle coats, and off we would go to school. I cannot remember the school ever being closed. The teachers were all local and could walk into school. One teacher would sometimes join our scarf line. Worst day was when we found ourselves on the snow bound railway lines, over twelve feet above the road we normally walked along. Families on our estate helped each other to clear the piles of snow so we could get to the shops. My dad, and other workers, walked to work where/when possible. In those days, adults and children could battle hard times, people didn't rely on their cars, didn't travel log distances to school or work, and snuggled together if the coal ran out. One night I wore 3 pullover and socks with 4 in a bed.!
Many thanks for rekindling my memories of those times. I was only 12 and to us kids it was a great time. I don't remember it being hard, just fun. I would return in a heartbeat.
I was born in January 1947 which my mother told me was a far worse winter than 62/63. My birth was in the local hospital in Middlesex and she along with me were not allowed home for two months due to the snow and extremely low temperatures. So at 1963 I was 16 years old I do vividly remember this snowy cold period with only one room having any heating with an open fire as there was no such thing as central heating then. Ice on the inside of the bedroom windows and the Friday night bath in front of the fire shared by me first, then Dad followed by Mum ! I was in my final year at school in 63, my school didn't close so it was a cold walk or cycle ride there and back. Thanks for these iconic memories and photographs of a bygone era !
i was born on 28 dec 62 - 2 days after the first frost, and over the years my parents would often talk about the big freeze of 62/3 - happy days peeps,
I was 14 yrs old, it snowed from December to March, for boys my age it was continued fun as we were ignorant of the hardships others went through. Our school never closed and we all continued on in life. Looking back now I would say it’s the worst winter I have ever experienced, in fact my mother died in February and I believe it was the hard winter which helped in her demise.
Sorry to hear about your Mam passing away Colin. That winter was bad I was only 2 but was reminded of it a lot by Mam and Dad growing up. I loved the winters back then but hate the snow now lol.
Now you would need counselling, and the WHO would be demanding you have a vaccine and a myriad of drugs…..for your good, and be content with their decision.
Like Colin I was 14, had two paper rounds in the morning and 1 in the evening. I was surprised, as living in Sheffield surrounded by hills, I never missed a day either at school which as far as I knew never shut, or my papers, because of the snow which I do remember. We also had a coal fire in the dining room with a back boiler for the hot water. Dad worked in the steel industry at the other side of Sheffield about 7 miles away and cycled 6 days a week. Life for elderly people must have been very difficult but people did work together to clear paths and roads but apart from frozen taps in the bathroom, I don’t remember people complaining, just got on with it, my parents who were the baby boomers parents, had all gone through the war, knew hardship.
Superb video, it brought back a lot of memories. My youngest brother was born in the December of 1962, and I was itching to take him out in his pram for a stroll. He was three months old before we could finally take him out. People struggled to get about back then, but there was a better sense of community than there is in todays world!
That year I was 14 and can remember still having to trudge to school. Luckily my Dad was a miner so we had plenty of coal to keep us warm, at least in our living room and kitchen. Upstairs was like a blinking ice box, no central heating back then , it was a water bottle in bed and a quick dash to get into bed. In the morning it was a quick dash downstairs to get dressed in front of a roaring hot fire . But most of us survived.
That was lovely Colin, thank you. It is marvellous to pay tribute to that time and to all the people. I was only a 4, but like one of the other commentators, I remember being really excited by - we lived in a place called Wraysbury, which is on the Thames - the snow and the frozen river... I might even have a photo or 2. Thank you again - very much,
I was born in 1958 and this was the first winter of which I have definite memories. I started school in February of ‘63 and recall trudging through the snow with my mother. Wee boys wore shorts back then; my little legs were freezing. Of course as was fairly normal, we had no central heating or double glazing, just a coal fire in the living room. I have a vague impression of my dad up in the loft dealing with frozen pipes; no lagging back then either. Our lives were less complex than now but it caused utter disruption and many deaths.
I was born the following winter (thankfully!), but my parents have always told me all about the winter of 1962-63. They had only been married 18 months at the time of the 'big freeze,' & were living in Norfolk, East Anglia. It caused all sorts of problems for them, frozen water pipes etc, but they carried on as best they could in the circumstances. They've just celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary, on 1st of July. Thank you for the video, very well put together. 😀⛄
Cheers Rabbit thank you for the comment. 62 years that is wonderful. People back then just got on with things and didn't moan about it great generation of people. Take care
@@colinthegeordiehistorian10 thank you for the lovely message, it's much appreciated. You are right about things, and people, being very different to nowadays! All the best, Tim ☺️
I was very youg at this time , but back in those days when I look at the records there was a lot of talk of a coming ice age , unsurprisingly . Now we know that the climate never stops changing
Hi rabbit. I was born in Norfolk during November '63. With such a long, protracted period of cold forcing people to stay indoors it's perhaps understandable there was a mini baby boom the following winter. Not many families had tellies back then to keep them occupied, eh ? Cheers !
Superb video, Colin. Informative, emotional, respectful and pitch perfect music. I was 3 years old at the time of this incredible winter, but have many clear memories of walking through the snow passages, the biting wind and the overwhelming relief of relief of reaching home with my Mother. You are correct- what a resilient generation! Somehow we kept going. Our families kept us safe & warm. An important episode in our individual & collective history. Thanks for the post 👍
Hi Chasidah I was very young so I always remember being told how bad it was. I remember some bad ones in the 70's growing up but when your young you love the snow. I like it now but just looking at it through a window lol
My farther was a brick layer in Manchester which in the main he enjoyed doing. That winter prompted him to emigrate to Australia which we as a family on December 23 - 1965.
I was nine in 1962/3. I remember that there was snow everywhere, and it never seemed to stop. The thing I remember most was watching farmers digging their sheep out of the snow drifts on the news. But as other people have commented everyone mucked in and helped out. Sadly, I do not think Britain would respond in the same way now.
You might be surprised. Don't judge the foreigners until they don't do anything. Condemn them first. Do you remember Johnson's Snow, in London 209? All the nurses came in, even the trainees were on the wards. Taking pictures in the courtyard, under a flowering cherry tree. The nurses and doctors from the Middle East, India, Philippines, and the continent were like children. They were seeing snow for the first time, most of them. Taking pictures to send to family back in hot, sunny climes. You weren't there, you know nothing about their commitment to the training, and the patients. I was in that hospital, three months. You cannot judge them.
@@Demun1649 I am unclear when and where you are referring to 209?. As for the people you mention I assume these were people who had come to work in the NHS, therefore were productive members of society. What I am referring to are the hordes of illegal immigrants who have come to this country who are not economically productive, on the contrary they are a drain on the countries resources. As for your comment about "not being there", this makes no sense. One piece of anecdotal evidence cannot be expanded to be used as an explanation.
@@MrHandle70 The ENGLISH are all descended from ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. Apply your warped ideas to yourself first, and get out of our country, The one your ancestors invaded between 420 and 600 years ago.
@@MrHandle70 It is not a free country, unless you are a multi-millionaire, at least. In a free country, I would be able to wear my yellow #NotMyKing fleece without being attacked by drunk English ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. These are NOT your islands, Go back to Denmark and Germany where you came from. Rhyddid i Pryttynn.
It was a 'Kennedy' moment for me. It was 3pm Boxing Day and I was playing with my new train set. I was 9 years old. I shouted out 'its snowing'. It did not stop, on and off, for 2 months. The next morning the snow was to the top our house door. I was so excited. A few days later I walked to the seafront. Lying on the stony beach were dozens of dead sea birds, all types, some very big. Never seen that before or since. As a child it was all magical.
I was 10 years old. I remember jumping into snow drifts and making slides on the school playing fields at break time. My dad got the local carpenter to make me a sledge, it was heavy and slow but I enjoyed sledging down the sloping fields on our farm. I got hot aches in my hands and chilblains on my feet from being out, playing, in the cold so much. All my older relatives would discuss whether or not the winter was colder than the one of '47!
I was 12 at the time and remember it well! Snow so high, you could only walk down one side of the road, with the t'other side at least 15 feet high! At my age then, it was just an adventure for us young uns!
I remember it well in Norfolk. In Norwich the main water supply froze in the roads. This was relieved by hooking up electric welding generators to the pipes, metal then, and then from road to private houses. Cars were driven down the river Ant and we walked across Barton Broad, not without terror when the ice ‘spoke’. Old locals laughed saying ‘When she groan she bear and when she bend she break’! In the county you could walk across the tops of hedges the snow was so deep. When the thaw came I was taught to drive on ice in an ancient Austin Se7en. Great days!
I was born just after Xmas this year in Norwich, while my older brothers and sister played outside in the snow as a new born I wasn’t taken outside for 3 months,
I can remember my father saying about this winter as he had just started on the old Brandon and Byshottle Council just before it was merged with the City of Durham Council . He was only on for a few days his manager came to see the lads on the sites . They were told they had two options either go home and get no wages as it far too cold to work on the building sites as they couldn't get the water or go out and help shovel around the streets to clear the paths and roads. My father being the grafter he was took to the shovel to keep the money coming in to the house as my grandfather had been laid for the time as the injuries he received during WW1 reopened and my grandmother had to look after him again. My grandfather had to retire from work all together during that period of bad weather. My father enjoyed his break from plastering without losing his job or wages. Cracking and informative video Mate.
I was 15 and just started work in a department store, no busses, I bought a pair of fur lined boots, and walked the two miles to work every day, to sell Ironmonegery Despite the weather we were still quite busy, Mainly people buying spades, shovels and salt plus home repair articles Got home much later every night, and believe me it was very cold
I remember this..living ina house with one coal fire..ice inside the windows,frozen pipes,our water came from a house or a tanker I can’t remember as I was a kid..we had a biggish hill outside our house we all had a sledge to play down it,was great fun..I remember my brother going to do his paper round,l looked out the bedroom window and I opened to see if my brother was on his bike ,my mum told me to call him back,I tried ..the snow fell so silently it was a beautiful sight..and the flakes landing on my face and in my eyes..the street lamp trying to peer through the curtain of whiteness and all hazy..it’s was the sight of my childhood ..and the days of lovely family cosiness of the confines of a really cold house,but that didn’t matter ..we had our closeness of the family ..I remember selling holly sprigs to the cars as they went by in some wintery years ,there were much less cars on the roads back then..I remember walking our dogs through the crunchy snow and jumping in snow drifts..my dad breaking down the icicles from the gutter ,so they didn’t fall on anyone ,and the drifts so high against our front door ,and my older brother climbing out the downstairs window and shove king the snow away so we could get out..truly magical days . Now u hardly see any snow..climate change we’ve done it all in 50 yrs.
I recall this winter well I was 15 at the time and living in south London. I recall waking up on Boxing Day and it was snowing and it just didn't stop. The milkman managed to deliver our milk, then about 100yds up the road he could go no further and the milk float was recovered about 2 days later. However my school never closed, walked to school everyday. By the time March had come everyone was fed up with it, but life continued through the months with difficulties, unlike today you have inch of snow and you'd think the whole world has collapsed!! I'm pleased at the time I lived in a large city, because living in rural areas must have been hard. I understand the winter of 1947 was brutal, I have photos of where my grandparents lived Birmingham with two to three foot of snow.
We suffered in Ireland as well with this snow and frost. I was only 11 years old and helped out on farm . The birds came into our sitting room for shelter and warmth. We were not allowed catch or frighten the birds but to feed them daily. We had to keep our animals alive by feeding and giving drinking water. The 1947 snowfall was bigger and started in March 17th. Some snow still lasted until early June. Farmers couldn’t plough their headlands because of snow
I remember it as a kid and having a great time, with the only legacy being chilblains. Still managed to walk to school some 1 mile distant, and I also remember our 3-bedroom house had a solitary coal fire in the lounge. Dad would fire up a paraffin heater on the upstairs landing in a forlorn hope it would heat the bedrooms but is simply created a not so pleasant aroma! No double glazing, so ice on the inside of the windows, but I will say we had a wonderful collection of eiderdowns and were literally snug as a bug at bedtime. Nowadays, you'd have some colour weather warning and the instilled fear that we're all about to die!
I was two years old at the time and as unlikely as it may seem I do remember the snow of 1963. My father digging a way to get to the coal bunker so he could light the fire while I looked around in sheer amazement at the huge white walls around me as I followed him along. I remember it like it was just yesterday.
Remember walking with Mum to the local coal supplier, pushing the pram home loaded with 2 or 3 bags of coal (3 cwt), knee deep in snow and treacherous icy pavements, I was 8 years old and frozen. I developed a fear of icy surfaces and to this day walk with pigeon steps in winter. In 1970 I'd just started work and leaving home one January morning found the pavement was thick with sheet ice, to my horror. The journey involved a steep downhill route into town.
I was nine, the things I remember are the windows in my bedroom frozen on the inside, my dad opening the front door to see a wall of snow that we had to dig through to get to school (Yes snowflakes, nothing closed). The other thing was chilblains as we all played outside in the snow, and boy were coal fires great to come home to and sit round at night (no tv in our house then)
We. Still had coal fires too a good stock of coal could keep you going even with power cut, plus we still had railways keeping everywhere supplied, all gone now. terrifying
I was 6 at the time and remember that cold. I remember warming your feet infront of a coal fire and getting chilblains, the frozen inside of the single pane windows, of not being able to get warm under my blankets in bed. Soo many memories of that winter.
Just a few years older than you (born in 1957) But I remember that Winter of 1963 with fond memories of walking a few miles over the fields and local hills in Grimsby, with my brothers and sister enjoy the peace and quiet until my youngest sister fell into a ditch easily 3 or 4 times as deep as she was tall. DID NOT like the constant cold, no central heating in those days.
In 1963, I was 17, and my brother was 22, we both rode motorbikes, but as mine was only a 200cc Triumph Tiger Cub, I was a pillion passenger on his 350cc Velocette Viper. On the second weekend in February of 1963, we rode from Coventry, in the midlands, to the Welsh Dragon Rally, held the other side of the Horse-shoe pass, in north Wales. The roads were treacherous, and at one point we were nearly wiped-out by the out of control trailer on a big articulated vehicle coming towards us. But we made it to the rally, and from what I can remember, we were one of just a thousand people who managed to get there. It was a very cold night, which we spent next to the massive bonfire; lying fully clothed in between the fire itself, and a tree-trunk log we’d rolled out from the fire.
I was six and still remember it. Can't say i remember all the hardship it bought, only the great fun we kids had playing in it and endlessly building ever bigger snowmen.
Nicely edited video with appropriate background music, very informative I was born in 1957 so remember how cold my ears got and waking up in the morning with frost patterns on the bedroom window inside….. happy days far simpler.
Me too. No central heating, and ice on the INSIDE of the bedroom window in the morning, and we were still required to get up and go to school. This was in the early 70s in southern England.
I was 15 and we went up the dales sledging. A rattle under the metal runners meant the top rail of a farm gate was below us. We dug caves into massive drifts and felt relief from the bitter cold. It was hard having no water and we were a family of 7. Our back yard was full of snow around 7 foot deep. Many sheep died and I helped a local farmer Mr Parker deal with them. They were frozen almost solid. I’ll never forget that year, oddly any photos our family had were from around 1947.
You mention that it paralyzed the country. Unfortunately not enough. I was a teenager during that time in the London area on the Essex border and I can't remember that we lost any school days during this specific . Yes it was very cold, there was some snow and a lot of fog, but our school soldiered on.
Our school stayed open, I was about 8... girls wore skirts, boys still wore shorts.... with wellies... no special warm clothes, no joggers or puffer jackets in those days.... It was freezing!... Our teachers lived right near school so kept it open, the kids were all within walking distance... Our class had a stove in the middle of a prefab and we were sent out on rota to fill the coal bucket. The loos were outside and froze... ( so did the one at home ) .. things got a bit smelly.... my mum was a home help and trudged for miles to make sure her clients were OK and to get the shopping buses were off.... one coal fire at home heated us and the water...and a parrafin heater in the upstairs bathroom to keep the pipes from freezing ... yes , we kept clothes on and as many blankets as we owned were on the beds at night... just had to get on with it... the terraced street at 3.03 looks just like my road at the time...
This was the winter that I was 7 years old and had to go into Worthing hospital to have my tonsils out, my Mum and I went on the bus from where we lived and it took us along the sea front from Lancing to Worthing and even though I am now 68 years old , I can still see in my minds eye the frozen sea shore and the slushy tide coming in and back out, this was 3 days after Christmas 1963.
I remember this vividly as a young boy of 8 in Leamore, Walsall. I actually went out to play in it, not unusual at the time as kids were far more adventurous up till the end of the 60's. It was difficult in those days but Lord how I miss them.
I was 5 years old and can still remember seeing the snow drifted up over my mums front windows, not as deep as some but as we lived by the sea it was amazing, the snow lasted well into April.
I was 11 over that winter living in a village in Northamptonshire that was cut off for a while. On one of the sunny days I remember standing outside the village and the snow was over the tops of the hedges. Ice inside the bedroom windows and sledging down the roads in the village. Cars couldn’t get up them so we were safe.
I was born in 1953 i remember walking to school in the drifts .The house had a coal fire in one room the bed rooms were so cold there was ice on the inside of the windows .Coats on the beds to keep warm as there was no quilts or electric blankets in those days .
A lovely video of the year I was born 🤔🙂👍 Thank you and you are so right about people having a different mentality and will to do their best in any situation 👍
My newly-wed parents moved into their house (a bare-bones renovation from semi-derelict) in '62. All their money had gone on buying it. Good walls, good roof, plumbing and electric. Heating was one open fire downstairs and a cranky coke burner in the kitchen. They planned kids in a couple of years but always said that I came early in August '63 'cos they had to do something to keep warm.
Thank you this montage was beautifully put together. I would have been in heaven with all that snow. I despair every time we only get an inch of snow and the UK comes to a halt. I love the snow and have fabulous memories of walking to school with snow piled either side of the pavement , making snowmen and snowballing , with the coal man stopping and telling us to separate the snow ball and make sure that there were no stones, coke or glass in the middle. As that is how he lost his eye . His brother bombarded him with snowballs only for one to have a piece of coal in it. I will save this video so that I can show my Nieves and nephews as they don't believe we used to get snow.
I wasn’t born until 1965 and my parents got their council house in 1964. So in 1962/3 they’d have still been living in a caravan. I can’t begin to imagine how awful it must have been for them especially as my brother was born in 1960 it must have been difficult trying to keep him warm
We used to put sox over our shoes and make lovely slippery slides in middle of road as not many motors them days. And there would be as many as 10 kids or more all taking turns on the slide
![London 1945 in color, Post World War II [60fps,Remastered] w/sound design added](/img/1.gif)
Great pictures I was 7 years old and remember it well,Lived on a farm,still had to go to school .
I was 7 as well, and lived on a farm, the school bus could only get a mile and a half away from our house so we walked to meet it, would be interesting to see how people would cope if it happened now.
That's crazy they still made you go to school 😂wow
We were well ard as kids…
@@jonathanlovell2694I remember being sent home because of the snow. Sadly some children didn’t make it in for months. I also remember people lived local, so walking was not an issue.
@@lpatterson5005we were tough little one in them days boys were boys and girls were girls no one was gluten intolerant, We never cheecked our elders or you would get a clip around the ear. We all ate the same meals, Mums didn’t make different meal for each kid, if you didn’t eat it you went hungry. We played outside from morning until dark, spending time in our bedrooms was a punishment. If it was cold we wore socks on our hands with plastic bags over the top to stop them getting wet for the snow. Omg we had the best of times.
I remember it as a child aged 9 years. It was cold but we were fine with 1 coal fire going.Would love to travel back to those days again with great community spirit and strong families.
I was born 1960, Lancashire, and when I read all the "community spirit" comments I get really sad, my family didn't experience any of that. Why? Because my mum was a German war bride and that did not go down well at all, especially in northern England!
@@VMM34 👏
It will never be the same again. To many woke and/or corrupt parasites out there now. Shame but never going to go back to life life that unfortunately.
Aye the coal fire is something I really miss.. only trouble was the chilblains you got when you went in to get warmed up after playing in the snow. My old uncle used to cook all of his meals in a pan that was put on the fire, I remember him showing me how to skin and gut rabbits.. then he would cook rabbit stew for us. My first job was a Coal man and I loved it, even though it was donkey work..
Everyone talked to each other back then and we used to be made to go around shovelling the snow off the old folks paths when we were kids, which is a rare sight these days.
My wifes cousin was moaning that 'Christmas isn't like it was when we were little', she was forgetting that you get out of life what you put into it. Christmas was great because of the effort that her parents put into making it so, not because it was a 'special' time. Community Spirit and strong families comes from you and me, not some mythical times past.
As for one coal fire, give me a well insulated house anytime.
I was born in '44 and remember '63 very well. Even the running Brook near our home froze solid. The sea froze at Eastbourne! It just went on until beginning of April. 😊
The sea froze at Southend too.
@@daviddarrall9384 jackanory awaiting both of you utter nonsense
@@northernlights8126 jackanory awaiting you.utter nonsensical comment
I too was born in 44,still had to go to work,we wouldn't be paid otherwise.Long,dreadful journeys there and back,so cold traveling by foot and no warmer at home,though mum tried,we burned most of our rubbish.
I lived in Eastbourne too and remember the sea freezing
Much tougher breed of of people back in those days, only needs a slight snow flurry today and the country grinds to a halt. I was 10 years old back in 62 and remember it well, was great fun as a child.
The country did grind to a halt then.
No central heating back then either. I was about 6 . I don’t ever remember any suffering times back then . Just happy times never wanting for anything . Unlike the miserable times of today . I see this and think of my mum and dad . I would go back in time tomorrow if I could have them back. I love and miss them so much.
I was four at the time. Imagine going through all that in a house with no insulation, double glazing or central heating, with only a single coal fire in the living room for heating. We had to dig a tunnel in the snow from the back door to the coal bunker, and be careful with the coal as well as you didn't know when another delivery would be made.
I'm glad I was just a kid, it all seemed great fun and a big adventure, but it must have been a nightmare for the adults.
We lived in the middle of the country, and used to chop wood which we left to dry for months at a time. So it was a bit easier for us than city folk. I hate to sound like the Hovis ad, but school was a couple of miles away. I had to walk up a small, single track road. Every time a car appeared, I scrambled up the snow covered banks to let them through. "Our dad used to love that bread"!
Remember,it well,
We still walked to school,as well, 🤠 Keith Wright, now 77 🍻
If we had a winter like that now.. I doubt the solar panels and heat pumps, wind turbines would keep the lights on
Our parents looked after us well, throughout.
At one minute and thirty seconds of your lovely film, there is a photograph of a road sign marked " BLAENAVON" which is the town where I was born in 1945. At the time this photograph was taken, I rode my motorbike from Rochester in Kent to Blaenavon, in order to visit my grandmother who lived there. The journey went from Rochester, to London, and then via the A40 road to Oxford, and at the town of Witney, around midnight, my motorbike lights failed, and a kind police sergeant allowed me and my mate who was riding on the pillion seat of my old BSA, to sleep in the prison cells of the old police station in Witney. At 0600hrs. he chucked us out where we continued our journey to Burford, Gloucester, Monmouth, Abergavenny, and finally in late afternoon we arrived in Blaenavon, to a bowl of lamb stew made by Grandmother. At Monmouth we had two punctures in the tyres, by riding over an exposed manhole cover which was covered in snow, and this made life interesting, to take off the wheels, tyres, and inner tubes and to warm up the glue for the patches on the exhaust pipe in order to get the patches to stick to the inner tube. Our return journey was slow, cold, and found us crossing Rochester Bridge at midnight , where a lovely policeman stopped me and fined me two pounds for riding without lights on my bike, because the snow had filled up the dynamo. The next morning, at 0730 am. I was back at my work, where I was an apprentice engineer, at the now defunct Shorts Aircraft factory on Rochester Esplanade by the river Medway. Tough times in those days, but you know what they say about Men of Kent !!!.
What an amazing story ! People were tough nuts in those days. And a different World now. What model BSA did you have ?
@@cyprusman5908 The bike was a BSA M21 600cc side valve from 1954. Which I named " Emma". She was a good old girl, and we covered more than 45,000 miles without any problems.
@@anthonywilliams6764 They were great reliable plodders that went on forever. Us kids use to buy old British bikes for under £5 during the 1960's and scramble them over the fields. My mate bought a BSA Gold Flash 650cc for £15 and threw the huge watsonian sidecar away ! Happy Days !
Brings back chilly memories,,thanks great film.
Wonderful story thank you. I wrote my Francis Barnett off in that winter. Regards Edward
I was 5, first winter going to school. No school closures in those days. They did keep us in at break times as it was warmer. Wrapped up in wool coats, hats, scarves, gloves etc jumpers and cardigans on in class, wee cold wet feet. Sensible teachers told us to bring dry socks and sandshoes... Left sandshoe's at school. I went home for lunch every day as I lived 5 mins away... Home into a warm kitchen, big bowl of soup and a hot pudding and back to school with dry socks in pocket... No central heating, coal fire in kitchen electric one bar in bedroom. Bathroom was absolutely baltic.... Bedroom had a carpet but hall and bathroom were linoleum... Oh cold feet. Ice inside windows . My sister and I shared a room.... During this time we shared a bed she was a few years older than me and she had a hot water bottle and I was usually warm... So she was happy... She called me her wee hot pie!!!! As we cuddled together. I am now shivering at the memory of the cold....
Liz, this comment made me smile. I was 5 too, first winter going to school (in Scotland). I had to walk to the primary school, nearly a mile outside the village, wrapped up like an Eskimo. On arrival at school we were allowed into the cloakroom between the two primary-one huts where there was an huge, piping-hot radiator. In the house we had a black cast iron Rayburn range in the kitchen and an open coal fire in the living room. There was no central heating. Upstairs was, as you say, utterly Baltic. Getting ready for bed was like preparing for an Antarctic expedition: hot water bottles were obligatory, I wore a woolly sweater on top of my pajamas, two pairs of thick woolly socks and a balaclava to bed. We had a huge old cat, called ‘Darky Joe the sad old Padre’ (named, I think after a character in a Graeme Green novel, before political correctness was even a concept) who sneaked into my bed and slept at my feet, purring throughout the night. I loved that old cat. He continued to sleep at my feet after the great freeze and lived to be 23 years old.
The drainage pipe from the upstairs bathroom froze, and we could not flush the toilet for days. My gran made a makeshift brazier and lit a fire round the cast iron drainage pipe. That eventually melted the blockage, but we were all terrified that the pipe would shatter.
One morning my grandfather opened the back door to find a complete wall of snow, up past door height. I had that day off school because it took him hours to dig us out with a tiny shovel. He needed to dig us out so that he could get to the coal bunker where he found that the coal had frozen solid and he then had to dig it out with a pick.
Magical memories.
@@lizholmes2730 thanks for that wonderful story could listen to you all day
Sounds like your Scottish wee bit pie.i live in Australia emigrated here many years ago it's never Baltic in Fremantle 😂
Sorry wee hot 🥧 pie,love it
Yup 5 too , I remember walking to school in short trousers.
My mother often recalls that winter, she has good reason to. She was 25 and pregnant with me and my twin brother ( although the doctors didn’t know about him until he was delivered 20 minutes after me!). Imagine being pregnant and trying to get to work, the shops, the hospital etc. They were a much tougher generation, they just got on with life with great stoicism. Thank you for showing me what I was protected from.
I was wondering how a pregnant woman coped. Well done, mum.
@@steveyewman I was 7 and remember how freezing cold it was in wellington boots and icy winds - mind you our house was so cold anyway you could scrape the ice off the inside windows!
Amazing photos, thank you. UK.
I remember helping to dig out the milk float that got stuck in our road in Wembley. We also helped the milkman deliver his glass bottles of milk to the homes in our street too. We still went to school a couple of days later 8.45am to 4.00pm Mon- Thurs and 8.45am - 3.30pm Fri. People went to work, they walked even if it was a few miles. Neighbours helped each other out. No big out of town supermarkets then. The local one was a short walk away and we improvised sleds to bring back supplies for those not able to get out. That’s why we remember it as a time we all came together and helped young and old.🎉
I was 7 at the time. Harsh but, great times. Everybody banded together. Never get that today.
Yes you do. We just got through COVID. Many people showed the same resolve and caring for others. Nothing has changed.
@@Known-unknowns what is your fascination with covid and posting on everyones comments about it you utter tw@t you have no idea you fool
@@Known-unknowns No comparison and what is more why did the House of Commons have every living politician in it, at the first, with no masks and no social distancing, preaching to us to wear masks and observe social distancing? Where MP's telling us that they were immune from Covid?
MP's were so in our faces with declaring that they were immune that they even held parties in their constituencies, and at No 10, drinking the night away.
One thing about living through some of the harshest of time is that you learn to own reality, unlike today, this shallow age that is so superficial it believes everything that it is told. My parents told us children never go near a politician, never listen to a politician as they are liars, and nothing has changed.
I remember it so well.
Boxing day 1962.
I had a paper round that year and made the most money ever in a week delivering papers. I was the only paperboy who turned up at the newsagents that day and the following few days. Walking through snow drifts, delivering newspapers. It was magical.
What a lovely memory to have tony. ❤️
I had a paper round to then. Had to walk my round, couldn’t ride my bike. Morning and evening rounds in those days.
Thank you for posting that. Goodness me! What you wrote brought home the reality of life with such a severe cold spell.
Somehow the country functioned with the stiff upper lip, not like the cotton wool types of today.
I was 19. It was as bad as they say. If we had another one like it, this country would not survive. We do not have the resilience that we had then.
Yes we do. We just got through Covid and that was years.
Then how do they survive in Siberia at -70 degrees?. Of course we would survive.
I think it would be harder nowadays, as we were less dependant then, on fragile or " on demand" supply lines for food and fuel. I was only 5 at the time, but I remember some things from that time, such as helping dad get to the coal bunker by digging with my kiddie shovel, and him moving said bunker up the stairs for easier access. Later, in the early 1970's, we had a lot of shortages, due not to snow, but to industrial unrest. But, like in 1963, schools and most workplaces continued as near usual as possible. Power cuts didn't stop schools and offices during daylight hours, as we used pen and paper, or maybe manual typewriters in offices, not computers to do our work, and we had books to study with and get our homework from. ( homework by candlelight !) The only day we were affected by a power cut was near Christmas, when we got let off home half an hour early as it was getting too dark to see our books ! In 1963 most people still had coal fires, and if necessary wood or other burnable stuff could be used, and basic cooking done on the fire. People just put on extra clothing if cold, most didn't have central heating anyway. One of my early school memories was of us all being sent home part way through the day to use the toilet, as the school loos had frozen up ! At 5 yrs old, no waiting for parents to come and get us !
Our parents had gone through ww2, and rationing, and the weather of winter 1947, so were used to making do and keeping going,. I'm sure we would rise to the challenge nowadays, but it would be a tougher adjustment in our society, as our whole lifestyle, even how we pay for food, is dependant on electricity, and internet connections. Russia doesn't need to bomb us, to cause chaos, just zap the cables and signals !!
@@Known-unknownsImagine all the power lines down across the country? No electricity or seriously rationed (if that was a thing). Now imagine your TV, internet, electronic tills, freezers in shops, shops with no lights as they are so large and need electricity or not possible, just-in-time delivery out the window and the power cuts cripple the data supplies.
We are so much more dependent on electricity to run our lives than in ‘63.
I was born New Years Eve 1962, my mother had to walk through snowdrifts for several miles in labour before the ambulance could get to her, thank you for the montage, her words never truly described what she went through to ensure I was safely delivered in the local hospital.
i was born 'new years day' 1963 at home downstairs in front of the fire coz' it was so cold,,,
Wow!!! I was born in the Summer that year. In an attic. I had it really easy by comparison!
They don't breed Women like that anymore!
January 24 1963.downstairs in the front room.😮
New Years Eve 1962 same but 1961 good old times
Watching this film has brought tears to my eye as my Dad told me when I was born along with my twin sister in Feb 1963 he could not get to Sefton General hospital to visit 2 babies who where very weak and not supposed to survive. He was always sad that he could not get to our Mum either because it was neck high of snow in Liverpool.
Myself and my twin did spend many a happy year with them both before they passed. on.
Thanks for the post.
I was eight years old that winter, and lived in a Hertfordshire village. Our little primary school was a two mile walk away down country lanes and a river towpath. The school didnt close and I remember sitting in my classroom, wearing my navy blue gaberdine mac and red and white hat and mittens knitted by my mum. Trying to write while wearing mittens was fun (not)! I remember walking on top of the hard frozen snow, ice slides in the playground, making toast with toasting forks over the coal stove, ice on the insides of the bedroom windows (not unusual in winter), snow glittering in the moonlight. We were hardy, full of fun and adventure, and had a warm, loving family, and a warm (two downstairs rooms heated by a Parkray coal stove), happy, secure home. They were good times and I would go back there in a heartbeat. Thank you for the video ❤
You were a child then. Different being a mother trying to cook, wash and clean for a family, plus getting to another job through all that. No thanks.
Lovely words.
What part of Hertfordshire.? My mother and father were from Stevenage they were living in little static caravan down a lane in this winter.how it never killed them I'll never know.. people where much hardier back then.just got on with it.
@@petergates8570 @petergates8570 We lived in Broxbourne. Yes, I think people were hardier and, in some ways, happier in those days! We just got on with it, didn't we?
@@carolineputus1482 yes I think people were happier.my old nan and grandfather where old Romany people living horse drawn wagons.theyd say we could be down a country lane.we didn't know what day it was and didn't care either..they'd say hard life but good life..bought up ten kids lived till 90
I was tucked up in my Mums womb all nice and cozy❤️Born July 1963…. Thank you for the content.🐑🇬🇧
@@wilderbeestmcc6539 thanks for that mindboggling useless information
me too I may not have been conceived otherwise !
@@Scott-up3bq
. . . At least people are trying to be pleasant ! On checking YOUR channel it seems that you make an habit of spouting negative comments ! 🙄
I was born on the 2nd Jan 63.
Remember my late Father telling me that they had to dig out path and road to get both Dr. and midwife through to aid my delivery.
Turned out cord was wrapped tightly around my neck and very lucky to be here thanks to the Dr and midwife..
This was at 24 Trafalgar Rd in Lympstone Devon, luckily my late Father was a Royal Marine based at Lympstone, and believe the RM assisted in clearing roads paths etc..
Looking at the footage , can see how deep the snow was snd how much hard work it took to dig out paths.
As was i
I was undergoing the culmination of my Marine Commandos training on Dartmoor when we were hit with the incredible weather. We finished the 3 day escape and evasion course but were informed that a party of Army apprentices had not been heard of for 2 days. So we searched the area where they were last seen for 2 days, bivouacking in the snow, and then were informed that they had been found in a small abandoned training camp, safe and sound.
It was a very realistic survival training experience but on passing Commando course I was sent to the jungles of Sarawak! From one extreme to the other!😅
@@derekswingler9595 that sounds about right no doubt some jungle training squaddies will have ended up in Norway at that time
@@derekswingler9595 thanks for that Rambo warm all over
@@derekswingler9595 me smell something
That does sound about right; fun memories! Winter exercise in Bardufoss, next one was Libyan desert, then Borneo. Ah, the joys of the Service! 😉
@@chrisweeks6973 thanks Rambo will sleep 💤😴 easier tonight.knowing that mindboggling, nonsense
I was a sixteen year old apprentice walking to work at the colliery through this every day , we had worn a path through it every day which got filled in every night with drifting snow…our job was to keep braziers going next to large pumps to keep them working pumping water out of the mine to prevent flooding…it was an amazing time…John.
Same age as yourself, worked in a coal yard bagging coal, and delivery it around the local houses, loved every minute, people where so kind, thankful, and generous.
I would give anything to go back to them days. No internet, less technology, less crime . A simple friendly time when people were happy and content.
I agree; even though life in general was harder, it was much more fulfilling as we had one another. The elderly were cared for regardless of personal shortcomings, and the warmth and generosity from the majority of people was what made it special. Today, we have drones, morons who walk about with their heads buried in a small, black screen. Such are the times of today where people would rather film someone getting stabbed than intervene to stop it. Men are not the same, which is shameful tbh.
@@deathonawhitehorse Mostly back then, we lived in tight knit communities, where everyone looked out for everyone else. Then came the bulldozers and tower blocks that were filled not with one demolished street at a time, but with people from a wide area, so communities became broken up. And then came migration and more migration . . .
friendly if you where a White English Christian Man, but a very racist, homophobic and sexist time, medical care was far worse and you where expected to "make do" and STFU , dont complain, Yeah Great time !
And a lot less foreigners
Hard times made us better people and we respected each other
I was 12 years old in 1962-1963 Big Freeze and i can remember that winter. As an active birdwatcher since 1958. I do know that half of the UK wild bird population died in that winter! But every night after school all of my friends and myself enjoyed going out sledging after school which never closed and all day at weekends as well as snowball fights. Thanks for that film. 🌞🌞🌞
I was fourteen, our school never closed, it was an amazing time for us youngsters.
But my mother who was frail died we think because of the weather. 😢
Sorry to hear of your very sad loss at that time.
Too right about the schools mate.
@@colincooper-gw7zf: I’d just turned 14, and yes, not a single day of school missed, that was a harsh winter!
I remember dead birds under trees in snow,especially Pigeons,Dad said what they managed to find to eat had frozen in their crop and choked them.
@@ianjthompson4715 thanks Peter scott
I remember it well, I was 15. We woke to Dad complaining there was no water coming out of the taps, he went outside to look at the Dow pipes and gasped, they were covered with ten inches of ice. It grew to double that and started to melt on March 8th a few days after my birthday, that’s how l remembered to day. How resilient we Brits we’re back then.
Yes I was a year older. It was awful.
20 inches of ice on a down pipe ... I don't think so !.
Made of harder stuff than this lot today. Tough times you naturally were one with. I had never seen such snow, and to walk to school with snow taller than you were was amazing. Everything seemed so quiet, as though the earth stood still and animals staid silent, so silent
😊 started school 1947 little girls never wore trousers so cold legs and damp feet, used to sit on the pipes at school to keep warm. Made a hood out of a woolen scarf, then to cape it all, got married in the winter of 1962/3. So significant times in my life have been cold weather. Now 82 so didn't do much harm.
Cough! We boys, in shorts, were cold, but ignored the cold, even our beds were freezing, and you had to stay in one position to warm that patch up, and hope you would fall to sleep before you felt like moving.
I was 15 at the time and lived in the East Midlands. Our Edwardian house was extremely large and we were fortunate enough to have had a new solid fuel boiler fitted in the cellar the previous autumn for the central heating. My father had chosen to leave his family a couple of years before and it was left to me to keep that boiler going 24/7 otherwise the house would have frozen - and so would we! I can recall seeing coke burning in the chamber. The noxious fumes were dreadful but it kept us alive. Cleaning out the residue was quite some task. Once we even managed to afford (somehow) to have anthracite - which burned almost white hot - and left hardly anything behind. Even with that heating going 24 hours a day the windows froze on the insides - the ice about a quarter of an inch thick. I still walked to school somehow every day - almost two miles - with some roads having drifts about 12 feet high. You often could not see the houses behind the snow. The schools never closed in my town. You battled on - and we lived.
Wonderful memories , I can also recall not being able to go anywhere during that time , I was nine then and we lived in Sherwood , opening the door we were confronted with snow that had drifted to the top , we had to dig ourselves out using a small hand shovel , the garden an easy two feet deep in snow. Your mention of stoking the solid fuel boiler reminded me of watching my father raking out the clinker and refilling it. But we got through it, my lasting memory was that there was still ripples of crusty snow by a sheltered wall in June ! Gone but not forgotten.
@@metalmicky Thank you for your memories too, Micky. You obviously had very similar memories to myself. And I recall opening the back door to be faced with literally a wall of snow where it had drifted. It does make us wonder just how we did get through it when children these days are not allowed to even have an icy slide in the playground on which to have some fun. The school could be sued these days if dear little Jason fell over and grazed his knee. I thank you too for reminding me of the word ‘clinker’. I had totally forgotten it. It actually was fairly hard work trying to keep the house at some acceptable temperature as the boiler had to go out and cool down slightly to be able to clear out the debris completely. Anthracite was the answer - but at a considerable cost. It burned so cleanly and left hardly any ash behind. I still remember having to walk down the middle of the roads because that was the only area clear enough to get through (presumably caused by both drifting and any snow ploughs that the Council used).
Folk these days would not believe that even with the heating blasting out condensation on the inside of those plate glass windows actually froze on the inside and the ice was, quite literally, a quarter of an inch thick.
We live to relate the tale.
Many people have suffered far worse. My Mother was pregnant with me in the dreadful winter of 1947. She then, prior to my being born in the August, had to suffer one of the hottest summers on record. I was three weeks overdue and entered this world weighing 10 lbs. 6 ozs. That must have been quite some year for her! (and me, come to think of it. No wonder I cannot bear very hot temperatures - I was probably roasting inside her!). I feel now I have a soul mate!
Not sure what year it was but really bad snow some point in the late 70s, our school said if we can't get there safely don't come so my dad, old git, made a sledge and dragged me to bloody school, I was gutted. We were talking about this yesterday (2.1.24). We lived in Billingham, near Middlesbrough and stockton. Good Times really, kids these days haven't a clue what hardship and resilience really means.
I was 7 years old in 1962, l remember living in a house, in Kent with ice on the outside and inside of the windows, water pipes freezing up and bursting, no central heating no insulation, but some how we managed to carry on. I noticed in the video that a postman was still delivering the mail. People back in 1962/ 63 were made stronger stuff. These days, if more than a few millimetres of snow were to fall on the ground in the U.K., everything grinds to halt. 🌨☃️
Everything grinds to a halt because councils don't grit the roads.
@jase6709 That's right, councils don't grit the side streets, the railways get the wrong type of snow on the tracks, people panic buy bread, and milk, shcools close, airport's cancle flights, etc etc ❄️❄️❄️
Although I mostly agree, the main reason everything grinds to a halt now is mainly due to the volume of traffic on the roads (so much more than in 1963) and peoples inability to drive in snow and icy conditions.
Health and safety is another issue as well in the modern world, if a 1963 winter happened now you probably wouldn't see a postman for 3 months😂
I was also 7 years old and we lived in West Sussex, a little village called Sompting just a 10 minute walk to the sea front at Lancing, I remember this winter so vividly because I had to go into Worthing hospital just 3 days after Christmas 1962 for my tonsils taking out and we travelled to the hospital by bus along the sea front from Lancing to Worthing and the sea along the shore line was actually frozen , I came home from hospital in the New Year, snow still very much in evidence. My Dad bless him had saved me the chocolates off of the Christmas tree but sadly and much to my annoyance my throat hurt to much for me to eat them lol I so cherish the memories from my childhood, so special. 🥰
I remember standing at a bus stop on the outskirts of Liverpool, holding my dear Mums hand at about 8pm, in the dark, during a blizzard, while the snow piled up around us. I must have been about 9 or 10 at the time. Happy days! Great video, thanks for posting.
I was 11 going 12. I went to school every day through it. It's what you did. You just got on with it. No need for counselling or hardship benefits.
I was in my early 20s living in London. I wouldn't have been able to pinpoint it to 62-3 but I do remember there being a really bad winter and doing a lot of trudging through heavy snow. Arriving places on the back of a scooter with icicles hanging off my eyebrows. I remember a London smog around that time too. It was horrific. Later that year I met my Aussie husband and in 1966 I travelled to subtropical Australia with him, which is where I still live. Different set of problems here. Very humid in summer! Like living in a sauna or a hothouse. Thanks for this blast of nostalgia. Cheers.
My wife was born 1st Jan 63. Her mother pushed her in a pram 2 mile to hospital as her husband cut half his finger off at work. What character people had in those days. Few had cars and telephones. Did my mother in law complain no. She had a disabled son as well at home. What a woman. RIP. Always in my thoughts.❤
A generation were we got on with it ,I was born in 63 sept and remember writing my name on the window when it was frozen on the inside ,I wrote it backwards so when I looked up on the way to school I could see mt name imagine that now .
@@beano3868😅
@@beano3868correct people today think they have an entitlement that the authorities own them
@@beano3868 Finger nails scratching down the ice, on metal window frames
True, they were hard times but nothing out of the ordinary, you simply fitted into them, knew nothing better as there was nothing better. You know what just came into my mind, fruit and veg. Go into the green grocers and the veg you could smell, lovely smell to the vegetables, which is missing today
I lived in South London, went to school as a 10 year old everyday! Shoes always damp then frozen on the walk. Coat on in the classroom. Cold in my mothers house and bed was probably the best place to be! Seemed like the cold went on for ages! Thanks for the memory!
Same here. The playground turned into a giant slide. Our classroom was a temporary building (at least twenty years old!😅) across the playground and our monstrous old teacher Mr.Cook would grab two boys by the shoulder and use them as a human walking frame to avoid falling over walking back to the class after break!🤣
I was 22/13. I remember digging the drive out for dad coming home, driving through the snow of course. He still drove 30 miles to/from work.
Me too. I remember the council workers shovelled the deep snow off the roads onto trucks and near me dumped on waste ground beside a railway. The mountains of snow remained until the summer and we kids played on them.
I was in the heart of S E London then, as a 9-year-old. We moved to The Outer London Suburbs 40 years ago.
Are you still there, please?
I was 8 years old. I remember walking to school in wellies and short trousers with snow up to my knees, my bottle of free school milk was frozen and we stood it on the radiator in the class to thaw it out.! It my be just nostalgia but we seemed to have proper winters and summers back then
Eye and we forgot all about being frozen and wet very quick as we where more hardy and got on with it
@jean2740 that was normality back then. 🙂🙂
Beautiful video. Way better than having someone talking over moving footage. The still pictures, captions, and haunting music capture the very essence of that extraordinary time. Perfect. 👌
I was 11 years old. Lived in North East England. I remember it well. I loved it lol.
I was ten years old when the snow first came. The kids in our street were still on our Christmas break from school. I remember helping parents dig out a channel in the 3 to 4 foot of snow along the crescent road in which we lived to the main road. This allowed the milkman, the baker, the butcher, the grocer, the postman and most importantly the coal merchant to make their deliveries. The gas and electric were never cut off. The only hardship I remember was having to walk 3 miles to school (in shorts, knee stockings, shoes and duffle coats) when they re-opened as usual in the New Year.
Duffle coats what happened to those we all wore them and I remember my gloves on a piece of elastic run through my coat sleeves so I wouldn't lose them
Yeah, I had a duffle coat too. If they were good enough for the Navy we couldn't complain.
Message to all teachers in 2023. Schools did not close. We just got on with life without too many complaints.
The difference in 1963 was nearly every child walked to their local school (usually on their own) and schools had full time caretakers who could clear paths and playgrounds of snow. I was 10 in 1963 and I walked home (to an empty house) from the age of 8. My mother returned from work an hour later. It would be illegal to do that now.
On day one of the snowfall a small group of us from our village got to school, in Town 3 miles away, crammed in the front of a passing LandRover driving by a local farmer. Most of the teachers didn't make it to school nor did most of the other kids.
😂😂😂😂😂
Get on with life? Okay gramps, let's see who can go upstairs to take a shit and be back downstairs in less than an hour.
@@nevillemason6791it's not illegal
I was born January 25 1963. This is the first time I’ve ever here’d of this severe winter. We lived in Sheffield in an old terraced house and the toilet was down through the cellar and across a cobbled yard. My parents must have kept me nice and warm.
Thanks mum and dad.
I was 10 during this winter and clearly remember going to school with snow coming over the top of my wellies and making huge long ice slides in the playground. We ran out of coal as the coal lorry couldn't get up the hill so spent many hours in the kitchen with the gas oven on. We had a paraffin heater for the other room. The day mum went down to the shop and they had run out of paraffin was terrible. It's the only time I ever saw my mother cry. The next day the thaw started and the coal lorry arrived. Hallelujahs all round! I can't imagine how we would cope with such a winter in this day and age. Thank you for stirring some precious memories. 😊
Oh the slides in middle of road as long as 20 foot ,oh the great old days as a kids ,we made our own memories, and used our imagination not bloody phone's and computers.
And here I am preaching the hood book, using a bloody phone ?
I was 8 years old. We lived on a hill and had a badly fitting front door. The snow blew into our hallway, and there was a small drift inside!
We only had an open fire in the lounge and a boiler in the kitchen, Lino on the floor and metal framed windows. It probably didn't help having
an open park behind us either. I remember this winter well.
Very nice video, compact but containing a lot of information in the pictures.
I'll just say, though, having been a teenager working on a farm in Derbyshire at the time, that although farmers lost livestock, a certain amount of that was accepted every winter, so it's truer to say that they lost more than usual - not quite such a shocking thing.
Other trades and professions didn't suffer unduly, because no one thought of staying at home off work. If it was too far to walk to work, normally you cycled or went by bus, and if the snow had temporarily prevented that you just set off earlier and tried some other route or got a lift with a lorry or something that could get through.
Only frail or ill people stayed in. Most old folk were hale and hearty and did their part in the snow-clearing most days.
Similarly I never heard of any school closing. We all walked to school anyway; snow, no matter how deep or drifted, was no great obstacle for an active scrambling child. We were more likely to be late from spending too much time on the way snowballing or tunnelling in the drifts.
Drivers of the far fewer cars that were about then, knew perfectly well how to drive through snow and over ice, because in most winters there was a week or two of that at the very least. If you got your vehicle stuck people just helped to push it or someone would come with an old Series 1 or 2 landrover, or a tractor, and pull you out.
We didn't suffer particularly from the cold, apart from achingly cold and wet fingers and toes [sent out to play in the snow with knitted woollen gloves!], and again, this was accepted as a part of every winter, as was admiring and then scraping off Jack Frost's fantastic patterns from the inside of your window panes when you got up every morning [having taken rather longer than usual to get to sleep because of the sheer weight of blankets over you].
Bothersome draughts in the evening when the wind was up also normal; anyway we all sat round the fire - coal or logs - lovely! - and made toast and told stories or occasionally listened to the wireless [radio]. Hardly anyone had a television, not so much because they couldn't afford one, more often because they were considered to be vulgar nasty intrusions taking too much of people's attention away from the harmony of the family.
On the whole people just carried on in whatever way they found they could, and stayed cheerful. Having made an allowance for the bias of nostalgia [and being a philosopher and psychologist I think I've done that fairly adequately], I would very happily return to a world where people related to one another in the way they did then. A world that was free and vigorous of speech with no fear of political-correctness zealots, and no absurd controlling of people and unwise manipulations of economies by edicts of stupid politicians in league with dishonest 'scientists' and globalist businessmen. Where possessions were much fewer, and there was a natural hardiness and native resourcefulness that seems to have dissipated now and almost disappeared. None of our super inventions [and I've also been an engineer] are worth the loss of all those qualties.
Didn't mean to go on so much, but - such great times!
Thank you for the video.
Well said, I survived the 1947 winter. Many babies got gastroenteritis and most of those hospitalised sadly died. My mother kept me at home and saved my life by giving me boiled water, I was born September 46. We moved to Derbyshire when I was 10 and experienced a winter of walking on top of the hedges because the snow was so deep. The villagers had no bread, so a group walked to the next village where they had a Baker, bringing enough for us all. Life is so beyond all that now!! WCL
Bloody loved that post! And thoroughly agree ... and I'm 46,... my nan made me feel like a family member, as time has moved on I too look back with a kind of aching sorrow.... THOSE were the days I felt ALIVE. these days everything seems just .... false, insincere, and rushed. Thanks for your insight, very much enjoyed reading that.
Well said . I was 10 years old and remember being below the snow level . I have rich memories of saturated woollen gloves ,wet feet , and a coke stove in the kitchen , keeping the whole house warm . In the following year my dad bought a Landrover series 2 . 😂
Enjoyed the video and your thoughts. I was born in February 63. I was there but missed it so to speak
robwilde...wow! I read War and Peace quicker than that..😬...(jokin')...yeah I was there 14yrs old in '63....playing out in that deep snow was absolutely brilliant!...and our school never had to close...like they do today if an icicle is seen on a window cill...
I drove my motorbike to work every day during that winter, through Kent a journey of 22 miles each day, everyone just carried on. The snow on the edges of the road was well over my head with only a single cleared track, it was very scary. What's often forgotten is that the pervious winter was also very bad. Over the new year period of 1961/1962 the whole of southern England came to a halt due to snow. I was in London that new year's eve and the roads around Trafalgar Square were covered with virgin snow, it was a unique sight. By the way we had to walk back home to Croydon Surrey because no transport was running.
As a ex London person, that is quite a walk. Was born in Carshalton.
@@fredblogs At that time I lived in Purley but one of our party lived in Croydon so we only walked to his house.
@@tonycamplin8607 Bet that kept you occupied for hours.
I remember those days well, getting to work was the devil of a job but we did it. Experts of the day said we were in for a new ice age and we must reduce pollution to reverse the trend! Powers that be brought in 'clean air acts' and 'smokeless zones'. People had to change from coal fires to gas or electric. Factories and Mills had to only let chimneys smoke for so many minutes per hour, and it worked! Winters got better summers warmer, kids stopped asking santa for a sledge, nowhere to use it! No more 'smog', great. Then mount St Helens, I think it was, erupted, and the weather, certainty in this part of the world took a turn for the worse again. Oh dear, new Ice age on the way again, no, after 3 years, when all the dust fell out of the atmosphere, we started to warm up again and have been doing so ever since but they are still calling for reduced pollution, that's what started the warm up isn't it? Now it seems to me that if your greenhouse gets too hot and you need to cool it, you don't take a wash leather and clean the windows, you take a bucket of whitewash and paint the glass to reduce the effect of sunlight, or is that too simple. I'm no expert, never went to University, just spent 83 years so far, living on this planet watching so called experts messing nature up. What do I know?
Very tricky on a road bike, but a trials bike not too bad
I was seven in 1963 and lived in a village in the West Country that was hit really bad. The snow drifted above the top of our back door and the windows. We went sledging every day as the local school was closed because there was no coal for the big cast iron heaters in the classrooms. The headteacher brought homework to us most days! Our house did not have central heating but we did have a Rayburn and my dad used his digger to dig his way out of the village and collect coal from the coal merchants on the main road, so we and the neighbours could keep our fires going. We made sure we fed the birds and the wildlife as so many animals were suffering and unable to find food. When the big thaw came there were floods. Hard times for some, especially the elderly but communities helped each other in those days.
Very nice thanks
When we went to bed there was frost on both sides of the bedroom windows no central heating then and you could see your breath in the air, mum used to give us hot water bottles and our coats were on the beds for extra warmth and we’d snuggle down. We were fine and never suffered any harm or ill health. A much simpler time then and no pressures or distractions, you just got on with it. HAPPY DAYS .
@@kathythompson2434 It was the same in our house, frost on the inside of the bedroom windows! My mum used to put eiderdowns on top of our covers in the winter and we had winceyette nigtdresses. Hot water bottles were a life saver. I guess we were hardier in those days.
I was 2 , my mum had me wrapped up in the pram, managing to get to the local shops. Coal fire going ,and good stews and hotpots, no double glazing or central heating!! Lovley neighbours ,those days were happy and great community s.x❤❤
Remember it well, I was about 13 and I went on a school trip to Switzerland for a ski holiday, we all felt cheated when we heard about the huge snow falls in the UK, however, we had a wonderful holiday with the teachers of Fair view Secondary Modern in South Wales. When we came back there was still lots of snow but more messy by then. Great memories of our great school.
I was 11 at the time living in Co Durham. It was hard but not even a day off school. People then were a different breed. They had a "can do" attitude, unlike today. Benefit culture has cost us dearly.
No different to today.
But don't let that stop your rose tinted myths.
@@graemestarkey7524truth hurts eh?
"Must Do" attitude!
@@graemestarkey7524😂😂😂😂
Its not that, theres nothing wrong with helping people who are in need. Dont talk like that or you might find yourself in a wheelchair one day as a lesson. The issue now is people have depression and all sorts of dopamine depletion due to technology and drugs (alcohol/coffee) etc. They dont have the same desire that people used to
Thanks for this.
I was 8 and with my two sisters, and with local kids who go to the same Primary School, we battled every day to go to school. Our mother tied us together with scarfs, put on our wellingtons and duffle coats, and off we would go to school. I cannot remember the school ever being closed. The teachers were all local and could walk into school. One teacher would sometimes join our scarf line. Worst day was when we found ourselves on the snow bound railway lines, over twelve feet above the road we normally walked along.
Families on our estate helped each other to clear the piles of snow so we could get to the shops. My dad, and other workers, walked to work where/when possible.
In those days, adults and children could battle hard times, people didn't rely on their cars, didn't travel log distances to school or work, and snuggled together if the coal ran out. One night I wore 3 pullover and socks with 4 in a bed.!
Many thanks for rekindling my memories of those times. I was only 12 and to us kids it was a great time. I don't remember it being hard, just fun. I would return in a heartbeat.
Glad you enjoyed I was 3 at the time so I cant remember only what my Parents used to tell me
I do remember we never seem to get cold and we loved the snow.@@colinthegeordiehistorian10
I was born in January 1947 which my mother told me was a far worse winter than 62/63. My birth was in the local hospital in Middlesex and she along with me were not allowed home for two months due to the snow and extremely low temperatures. So at 1963 I was 16 years old I do vividly remember this snowy cold period with only one room having any heating with an open fire as there was no such thing as central heating then. Ice on the inside of the bedroom windows and the Friday night bath in front of the fire shared by me first, then Dad followed by Mum ! I was in my final year at school in 63, my school didn't close so it was a cold walk or cycle ride there and back. Thanks for these iconic memories and photographs of a bygone era !
i was born on 28 dec 62 - 2 days after the first frost, and over the years my parents would often talk about the big freeze of 62/3 - happy days peeps,
I was 14 yrs old, it snowed from December to March, for boys my age it was continued fun as we were ignorant of the hardships others went through.
Our school never closed and we all continued on in life.
Looking back now I would say it’s the worst winter I have ever experienced, in fact my mother died in February and I believe it was the hard winter which helped in her demise.
Sorry to hear about your Mam passing away Colin. That winter was bad I was only 2 but was reminded of it a lot by Mam and Dad growing up. I loved the winters back then but hate the snow now lol.
lets do it again i was 12/ 13
Now you would need counselling, and the WHO would be demanding you have a vaccine and a myriad of drugs…..for your good, and be content with their decision.
Like Colin I was 14, had two paper rounds in the morning and 1 in the evening. I was surprised, as living in Sheffield surrounded by hills, I never missed a day either at school which as far as I knew never shut, or my papers, because of the snow which I do remember. We also had a coal fire in the dining room with a back boiler for the hot water. Dad worked in the steel industry at the other side of Sheffield about 7 miles away and cycled 6 days a week. Life for elderly people must have been very difficult but people did work together to clear paths and roads but apart from frozen taps in the bathroom, I don’t remember people complaining, just got on with it, my parents who were the baby boomers parents, had all gone through the war, knew hardship.
@@Eric-jo8uh Well said 🙄👏👏👏
Superb video, it brought back a lot of memories. My youngest brother was born in the December of 1962, and I was itching to take him out in his pram for a stroll. He was three months old before we could finally take him out. People struggled to get about back then, but there was a better sense of community than there is in todays world!
That year I was 14 and can remember still having to trudge to school. Luckily my Dad was a miner so we had plenty of coal to keep us warm, at least in our living room and kitchen. Upstairs was like a blinking ice box, no central heating back then , it was a water bottle in bed and a quick dash to get into bed. In the morning it was a quick dash downstairs to get dressed in front of a roaring hot fire . But most of us survived.
I was born 09/12/1962 and spent this first winter in my cot in a warm living room looked after by my beautiful mother , god bless her soul, RIP MUM ❤️
Amen 🙏🏼
Bless ❤
That was lovely Colin, thank you. It is marvellous to pay tribute to that time and to all the people. I was only a 4, but like one of the other commentators, I remember being really excited by - we lived in a place called Wraysbury, which is on the Thames - the snow and the frozen river... I might even have a photo or 2. Thank you again - very much,
Glad you enjoyed Caroline
I was born in 1958 and this was the first winter of which I have definite memories. I started school in February of ‘63 and recall trudging through the snow with my mother. Wee boys wore shorts back then; my little legs were freezing. Of course as was fairly normal, we had no central heating or double glazing, just a coal fire in the living room. I have a vague impression of my dad up in the loft dealing with frozen pipes; no lagging back then either. Our lives were less complex than now but it caused utter disruption and many deaths.
I was born the following winter (thankfully!), but my parents have always told me all about the winter of 1962-63. They had only been married 18 months at the time of the 'big freeze,' & were living in Norfolk, East Anglia. It caused all sorts of problems for them, frozen water pipes etc, but they carried on as best they could in the circumstances. They've just celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary, on 1st of July. Thank you for the video, very well put together. 😀⛄
Cheers Rabbit thank you for the comment. 62 years that is wonderful. People back then just got on with things and didn't moan about it great generation of people. Take care
@@colinthegeordiehistorian10 thank you for the lovely message, it's much appreciated. You are right about things, and people, being very different to nowadays! All the best, Tim ☺️
I was very youg at this time , but back in those days when I look at the records
there was a lot of talk of a coming ice age , unsurprisingly .
Now we know that the climate never stops changing
Hi rabbit.
I was born in Norfolk during November '63.
With such a long, protracted period of cold forcing people to stay indoors it's perhaps understandable there was a mini baby boom the following winter.
Not many families had tellies back then to keep them occupied, eh ?
Cheers !
@@cuhurun funnily enough I was conceived in Norwich in April '63, just a month after the big freeze ended, so you make a good point there, haha! 😂 🤣
Superb video, Colin. Informative, emotional, respectful and pitch perfect music. I was 3 years old at the time of this incredible winter, but have many clear memories of walking through the snow passages, the biting wind and the overwhelming relief of relief of reaching home with my Mother. You are correct- what a resilient generation! Somehow we kept going. Our families kept us safe & warm. An important episode in our individual & collective history. Thanks for the post 👍
Hi Chasidah I was very young so I always remember being told how bad it was. I remember some bad ones in the 70's growing up but when your young you love the snow. I like it now but just looking at it through a window lol
My farther was a brick layer in Manchester which in the main he enjoyed doing. That winter prompted him to emigrate to Australia which we as a family on December 23 - 1965.
I was nine in 1962/3. I remember that there was snow everywhere, and it never seemed to stop. The thing I remember most was watching farmers digging their sheep out of the snow drifts on the news. But as other people have commented everyone mucked in and helped out. Sadly, I do not think Britain would respond in the same way now.
You might be surprised. Don't judge the foreigners until they don't do anything. Condemn them first. Do you remember Johnson's Snow, in London 209? All the nurses came in, even the trainees were on the wards. Taking pictures in the courtyard, under a flowering cherry tree. The nurses and doctors from the Middle East, India, Philippines, and the continent were like children. They were seeing snow for the first time, most of them. Taking pictures to send to family back in hot, sunny climes. You weren't there, you know nothing about their commitment to the training, and the patients. I was in that hospital, three months. You cannot judge them.
@Demun1649 It is still a free country, please do NOT tell me how I can think.
@@Demun1649 I am unclear when and where you are referring to 209?. As for the people you mention I assume these were people who had come to work in the NHS, therefore were productive members of society. What I am referring to are the hordes of illegal immigrants who have come to this country who are not economically productive, on the contrary they are a drain on the countries resources.
As for your comment about "not being there", this makes no sense. One piece of anecdotal evidence cannot be expanded to be used as an explanation.
@@MrHandle70 The ENGLISH are all descended from ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. Apply your warped ideas to yourself first, and get out of our country, The one your ancestors invaded between 420 and 600 years ago.
@@MrHandle70 It is not a free country, unless you are a multi-millionaire, at least.
In a free country, I would be able to wear my yellow #NotMyKing fleece without being attacked by drunk English ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. These are NOT your islands, Go back to Denmark and Germany where you came from. Rhyddid i Pryttynn.
It was a 'Kennedy' moment for me. It was 3pm Boxing Day and I was playing with my new train set. I was 9 years old. I shouted out 'its snowing'. It did not stop, on and off, for 2 months. The next morning the snow was to the top our house door. I was so excited. A few days later I walked to the seafront. Lying on the stony beach were dozens of dead sea birds, all types, some very big. Never seen that before or since. As a child it was all magical.
Ah the good old days! Yeah I'll always remember this winter.
Great pictures… remember it well I was 10 years old and still went to school… seem to last forever 😮
I was 10 years old. I remember jumping into snow drifts and making slides on the school playing fields at break time. My dad got the local carpenter to make me a sledge, it was heavy and slow but I enjoyed sledging down the sloping fields on our farm. I got hot aches in my hands and chilblains on my feet from being out, playing, in the cold so much. All my older relatives would discuss whether or not the winter was colder than the one of '47!
I was 12 at the time and remember it well! Snow so high, you could only walk down one side of the road, with the t'other side at least 15 feet high! At my age then, it was just an adventure for us young uns!
I remember it well in Norfolk. In Norwich the main water supply froze in the roads. This was relieved by hooking up electric welding generators to the pipes, metal then, and then from road to private houses. Cars were driven down the river Ant and we walked across Barton Broad, not without terror when the ice ‘spoke’. Old locals laughed saying ‘When she groan she bear and when she bend she break’! In the county you could walk across the tops of hedges the snow was so deep. When the thaw came I was taught to drive on ice in an ancient Austin Se7en. Great days!
I was born just after Xmas this year in Norwich, while my older brothers and sister played outside in the snow as a new born I wasn’t taken outside for 3 months,
I can remember my father saying about this winter as he had just started on the old Brandon and Byshottle Council just before it was merged with the City of Durham Council . He was only on for a few days his manager came to see the lads on the sites . They were told they had two options either go home and get no wages as it far too cold to work on the building sites as they couldn't get the water or go out and help shovel around the streets to clear the paths and roads. My father being the grafter he was took to the shovel to keep the money coming in to the house as my grandfather had been laid for the time as the injuries he received during WW1 reopened and my grandmother had to look after him again. My grandfather had to retire from work all together during that period of bad weather. My father enjoyed his break from plastering without losing his job or wages. Cracking and informative video Mate.
Cheers Mate loved reading the post. Men were men in those days.
My Dad was also a Plasterer. Just saying.
@@Puzzoozoo not a ool maker like starmers dad
I was 15 and just started work in a department store, no busses, I bought a pair of fur lined boots, and walked the two miles to work every day, to sell Ironmonegery
Despite the weather we were still quite busy, Mainly people buying spades, shovels and salt plus home repair articles
Got home much later every night, and believe me it was very cold
I remember this..living ina house with one coal fire..ice inside the windows,frozen pipes,our water came from a house or a tanker I can’t remember as I was a kid..we had a biggish hill outside our house we all had a sledge to play down it,was great fun..I remember my brother going to do his paper round,l looked out the bedroom window and I opened to see if my brother was on his bike ,my mum told me to call him back,I tried ..the snow fell so silently it was a beautiful sight..and the flakes landing on my face and in my eyes..the street lamp trying to peer through the curtain of whiteness and all hazy..it’s was the sight of my childhood ..and the days of lovely family cosiness of the confines of a really cold house,but that didn’t matter ..we had our closeness of the family ..I remember selling holly sprigs to the cars as they went by in some wintery years ,there were much less cars on the roads back then..I remember walking our dogs through the crunchy snow and jumping in snow drifts..my dad breaking down the icicles from the gutter ,so they didn’t fall on anyone ,and the drifts so high against our front door ,and my older brother climbing out the downstairs window and shove king the snow away so we could get out..truly magical days .
Now u hardly see any snow..climate change we’ve done it all in 50 yrs.
I recall this winter well I was 15 at the time and living in south London. I recall waking up on Boxing Day and it was snowing and it just didn't stop. The milkman managed to deliver our milk, then about 100yds up the road he could go no further and the milk float was recovered about 2 days later. However my school never closed, walked to school everyday. By the time March had come everyone was fed up with it, but life continued through the months with difficulties, unlike today you have inch of snow and you'd think the whole world has collapsed!! I'm pleased at the time I lived in a large city, because living in rural areas must have been hard. I understand the winter of 1947 was brutal, I have photos of where my grandparents lived Birmingham with two to three foot of snow.
I remember 63. I lived on a farm but we still went to school. Nowadays a wee flurry and everyone hits the panic button.
Yes I remember this well bbbbrrrrr - you could scrape off the ice on the insides of our windows at home!!
We suffered in Ireland as well with this snow and frost. I was only 11 years old and helped out on farm . The birds came into our sitting room for shelter and warmth. We were not allowed catch or frighten the birds but to feed them daily. We had to keep our animals alive by feeding and giving drinking water. The 1947 snowfall was bigger and started in March 17th. Some snow still lasted until early June. Farmers couldn’t plough their headlands because of snow
Yes the world has changed since then. We never had locks on our doors. Neighbours came in nightly to have tea and chats .
I remember it as a kid and having a great time, with the only legacy being chilblains. Still managed to walk to school some 1 mile distant, and I also remember our 3-bedroom house had a solitary coal fire in the lounge. Dad would fire up a paraffin heater on the upstairs landing in a forlorn hope it would heat the bedrooms but is simply created a not so pleasant aroma! No double glazing, so ice on the inside of the windows, but I will say we had a wonderful collection of eiderdowns and were literally snug as a bug at bedtime. Nowadays, you'd have some colour weather warning and the instilled fear that we're all about to die!
I was two years old at the time and as unlikely as it may seem I do remember the snow of 1963. My father digging a way to get to the coal bunker so he could light the fire while I looked around in sheer amazement at the huge white walls around me as I followed him along. I remember it like it was just yesterday.
Remember walking with Mum to the local coal supplier, pushing the pram home loaded with 2 or 3 bags of coal (3 cwt), knee deep in snow and treacherous icy pavements, I was 8 years old and frozen. I developed a fear of icy surfaces and to this day walk with pigeon steps in winter. In 1970 I'd just started work and leaving home one January morning found the pavement was thick with sheet ice, to my horror. The journey involved a steep downhill route into town.
Memories Michael I know I am no good now on anything with ice on it. Loved it back in the day. Thank you for the comment much appreciated
I was nine, the things I remember are the windows in my bedroom frozen on the inside, my dad opening the front door to see a wall of snow that we had to dig through to get to school (Yes snowflakes, nothing closed). The other thing was chilblains as we all played outside in the snow, and boy were coal fires great to come home to and sit round at night (no tv in our house then)
Ours was the same ,he opened the front door and laughed as it was a wall of snow ,the drift was on ourside of the street.😂😂
Imagine todays pampered society dealing with this.
No way kids are all pampered little shi..
Absolutely no way ……..
Complete meltdown……
We. Still had coal fires too a good stock of coal could keep you going even with power cut, plus we still had railways keeping everywhere supplied, all gone now. terrifying
No!
Aristotle in 380 BC said basically the same thing,
.
I was 6 at the time and remember that cold. I remember warming your feet infront of a coal fire and getting chilblains, the frozen inside of the single pane windows, of not being able to get warm under my blankets in bed. Soo many memories of that winter.
I was 17 and walked to work every day. The snow started on Boxing Day 1962 and was still laying in the fields at Easter.
2 worse winters since the war are allegedly 1947 and 1963, but I can name two worse ones Mike & Bernie. People of a certain age will agree.
Lol
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
They were f.... terrible!
You're right! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
I found them inane! but of the dominant persuasion prevalent at the time in light entertainment, a talentless twosome.
@@ernestinehemingway7799 any body that found them funny, is a complete idiot!
Shnorbitz, really???
😉😆😆😆😆
They were about as funny as treading in cat sh*t.
Just a few years older than you (born in 1957) But I remember that Winter of 1963 with fond memories of walking a few miles over the fields and local hills in Grimsby, with my brothers and sister enjoy the peace and quiet until my youngest sister fell into a ditch easily 3 or 4 times as deep as she was tall. DID NOT like the constant cold, no central heating in those days.
In 1963, I was 17, and my brother was 22, we both rode motorbikes, but as mine was only a 200cc Triumph Tiger Cub, I was a pillion passenger on his 350cc Velocette Viper. On the second weekend in February of 1963, we rode from Coventry, in the midlands, to the Welsh Dragon Rally, held the other side of the Horse-shoe pass, in north Wales. The roads were treacherous, and at one point we were nearly wiped-out by the out of control trailer on a big articulated vehicle coming towards us. But we made it to the rally, and from what I can remember, we were one of just a thousand people who managed to get there. It was a very cold night, which we spent next to the massive bonfire; lying fully clothed in between the fire itself, and a tree-trunk log we’d rolled out from the fire.
I was six and still remember it. Can't say i remember all the hardship it bought, only the great fun we kids had playing in it and endlessly building ever bigger snowmen.
Nicely edited video with appropriate background music, very informative I was born in 1957 so remember how cold my ears got and waking up in the morning with frost patterns on the bedroom window inside….. happy days far simpler.
Me too. No central heating, and ice on the INSIDE of the bedroom window in the morning, and we were still required to get up and go to school. This was in the early 70s in southern England.
I was 15 and we went up the dales sledging. A rattle under the metal runners meant the top rail of a farm gate was below us. We dug caves into massive drifts and felt relief from the bitter cold. It was hard having no water and we were a family of 7. Our back yard was full of snow around 7 foot deep.
Many sheep died and I helped a local farmer Mr Parker deal with them. They were frozen almost solid. I’ll never forget that year, oddly any photos our family had were from around 1947.
You mention that it paralyzed the country. Unfortunately not enough. I was a teenager during that time in the London area on the Essex border and I can't remember that we lost any school days during this specific . Yes it was very cold, there was some snow and a lot of fog, but our school soldiered on.
And ours- in the central belt of Scotland..
True it didn't paralise the country, but it did slow the country down ,but yes we all trudged on as you do😊
@@olwens1368eye would have been really bad there as Scotland is always the coldest place in country and I'm from could newcastle
Memories of this winter in the NEh of England aged 12. Amazing, but life certainly did not stop the way it would now for sure - think about that!!
Our school stayed open, I was about 8... girls wore skirts, boys still wore shorts.... with wellies... no special warm clothes, no joggers or puffer jackets in those days.... It was freezing!... Our teachers lived right near school so kept it open, the kids were all within walking distance... Our class had a stove in the middle of a prefab and we were sent out on rota to fill the coal bucket. The loos were outside and froze... ( so did the one at home ) .. things got a bit smelly.... my mum was a home help and trudged for miles to make sure her clients were OK and to get the shopping buses were off.... one coal fire at home heated us and the water...and a parrafin heater in the upstairs bathroom to keep the pipes from freezing ... yes , we kept clothes on and as many blankets as we owned were on the beds at night... just had to get on with it... the terraced street at 3.03 looks just like my road at the time...
This was the winter that I was 7 years old and had to go into Worthing hospital to have my tonsils out, my Mum and I went on the bus from where we lived and it took us along the sea front from Lancing to Worthing and even though I am now 68 years old , I can still see in my minds eye the frozen sea shore and the slushy tide coming in and back out, this was 3 days after Christmas 1963.
I remember this vividly as a young boy of 8 in Leamore, Walsall. I actually went out to play in it, not unusual at the time as kids were far more adventurous up till the end of the 60's. It was difficult in those days but Lord how I miss them.
A somber reminder of days gone by! I was 12 with a paper round. I will never forget it.
I was 5 years old and can still remember seeing the snow drifted up over my mums front windows, not as deep as some but as we lived by the sea it was amazing, the snow lasted well into April.
I was 11 over that winter living in a village in Northamptonshire that was cut off for a while. On one of the sunny days I remember standing outside the village and the snow was over the tops of the hedges. Ice inside the bedroom windows and sledging down the roads in the village. Cars couldn’t get up them so we were safe.
I was born in 1953 i remember walking to school in the drifts .The house had a coal fire in one room the bed rooms were so cold there was ice on the inside of the windows .Coats on the beds to keep warm as there was no quilts or electric blankets in those days .
A lovely video of the year I was born 🤔🙂👍 Thank you and you are so right about people having a different mentality and will to do their best in any situation 👍
My newly-wed parents moved into their house (a bare-bones renovation from semi-derelict) in '62. All their money had gone on buying it. Good walls, good roof, plumbing and electric. Heating was one open fire downstairs and a cranky coke burner in the kitchen. They planned kids in a couple of years but always said that I came early in August '63 'cos they had to do something to keep warm.
Thank you this montage was beautifully put together. I would have been in heaven with all that snow. I despair every time we only get an inch of snow and the UK comes to a halt. I love the snow and have fabulous memories of walking to school with snow piled either side of the pavement , making snowmen and snowballing , with the coal man stopping and telling us to separate the snow ball and make sure that there were no stones, coke or glass in the middle. As that is how he lost his eye . His brother bombarded him with snowballs only for one to have a piece of coal in it. I will save this video so that I can show my Nieves and nephews as they don't believe we used to get snow.
I wasn’t born until 1965 and my parents got their council house in 1964. So in 1962/3 they’d have still been living in a caravan. I can’t begin to imagine how awful it must have been for them especially as my brother was born in 1960 it must have been difficult trying to keep him warm
Hard times Louise I was born in 1960 as well so was told about this winter a lot growing up
This makes me so sad , as the community spirit we had back then will never be seen again
We used to put sox over our shoes and make lovely slippery slides in middle of road as not many motors them days.
And there would be as many as 10 kids or more all taking turns on the slide
The land of lost content