Would It Bother You If A Friend...
Family & Relationships1 min ago
1963
55 Answers
Anyone watch the Big Freeze , Winter of 1963 Bbc 4 last night, how the hell did they cope. Amazing.
Answers
Best Answer
No best answer has yet been selected by gulliver1. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.
It would seem that from the posts most of you remember 1963 as being one of the worst on record. Yes, it was cold and icy but nothing like the winter of 1947 when the snow drifts were as high as double decker buses. Rivers froze, fish died. Birds and small animals perished. We lived on a farm and had to dig sheep out of snowdrifts. Walk miles to school. Sit in freezing cold classrooms. Our well froze and we had to cut chunks of ice into the pan in order to get a cup of tea. Use snow to rub onto our hands and face . No cars or buses in our area. Use sledges to carry the shopping back from the one shop two miles away. Yes we did have some fun though . Built igloos in the field, snowball fights, a lovely fire at nights in the bedroom , candlelight (no electricity). 1963 was different. Lived in Rochdale then.Cold and icy but nothing like '47.
They claimed that '63 was worse than '47 but people on this thread are claiming the reverse. I was only 18 months old in 1947, so no personal memory. I have a photo of me on the frozen River Ribble in 1947; in 1963 I walked on it but it was creaking so I didn't feel confident to walk right across. It makes me think 1947 was colder, certainly in my part of Lancashire.
Andres @ 22.53:
/ Lived in Rochdale then.Cold and icy but nothing like '47./
I wasn't born in 1947 but I remember the 1962/63 winter. I was 14, living on a council estate in Middleton and had my first and only paper round which I started at the end of January 1963. So don't forget us paper boys and girls everyone, who trudged through it morning and night just so you could have your Daily Wail! And all for 10/- per week!
/ Lived in Rochdale then.Cold and icy but nothing like '47./
I wasn't born in 1947 but I remember the 1962/63 winter. I was 14, living on a council estate in Middleton and had my first and only paper round which I started at the end of January 1963. So don't forget us paper boys and girls everyone, who trudged through it morning and night just so you could have your Daily Wail! And all for 10/- per week!
"If anyone thought by the Sixties that those Forties weather extremes were a thing of the past, this winter set them right.
The so-called Big Freeze of 1963 is seen as the worst British winter of modern times, the coldest for 200 years.
Parts of the sea froze, which happens if it goes below -2°C, and it all dragged on from the week before Christmas until March!"
https:/
"The winter of 1963 - the coldest for more than 200 years
With temperatures so cold the sea froze in places, 1963 is one of the coldest winters on record. Bringing blizzards, snow drifts, blocks of ice, and temperatures lower than -20 °C, it was colder than the winter of 1947, and the coldest since 1740."
https:/
The so-called Big Freeze of 1963 is seen as the worst British winter of modern times, the coldest for 200 years.
Parts of the sea froze, which happens if it goes below -2°C, and it all dragged on from the week before Christmas until March!"
https:/
"The winter of 1963 - the coldest for more than 200 years
With temperatures so cold the sea froze in places, 1963 is one of the coldest winters on record. Bringing blizzards, snow drifts, blocks of ice, and temperatures lower than -20 °C, it was colder than the winter of 1947, and the coldest since 1740."
https:/
Gulliver, 10/ is equivalent to £7.32 today
https:/
https:/
danny - I suppose we all have only local memories whereas the met office have statistics for the whole country. I don't remember our school being closed at all in '63, although some of the farmers' sons didn't make it in to school on a few occasions. In those days most people, including teachers, lived within walking distance of work so getting to work wasn't the same problem as it is nowadays.
Barry, yes, much shorter.May be the Met office ignored West Yorkshire in it's calculations.In 1963 I was a beat constable and I never saw anything to remind me of 1947.
https:/
https:/
