Did Anyone See Last Nights Program On The 62 / 63 Winter ?

[marsh man]

I found it very interesting with all the old footage from one of the worst winters in living memory , the only downside was Mr C Packham was part of the program , it started on December the 22nd and apart from three days where there was a slight thaw it continued freezing cold till nearly March , it was stated that when the severe Winter finally surrendered that half of the country's bird life had perished , parts of the sea froze over and a lot of the inland waterways and rivers froze solid to the extent where you drive a motor over lakes and rivers , when it finished the presenter said with all the extreme weather we get that another winter like the above could certainly happen again .

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, I never watch the programme but I remember it well as it started on my 13th birthday 🤔, 3 months of hell 😁

[islandgun]

Didn't see the programme but remember the winter, I was ten and explored every way i could, to enjoy it, Dont quite get  "with all the extreme weather we get it could happen again" it happened then [60yrs ago] and no one blamed anything/one,.........sometimes it gets really cold 

[Dougy]

I was just a tot, but you just got on with it. 

As with power cuts, we just got through it. 

[old man]

6 minutes ago, islandgun said:

Didn't see the programme but remember the winter, I was ten and explored every way i could, to enjoy it, Dont quite get  "with all the extreme weather we get it could happen again" it happened then [60yrs ago] and no one blamed anything/one,.........sometimes it gets really cold 

Yes but then it was just weather, not the huge moneymaking scam it has been turned into?

[Yellow Bear]

7 minutes ago, islandgun said:

Didn't see the programme but remember the winter, I was ten and explored every way i could, to enjoy it, Dont quite get  "with all the extreme weather we get it could happen again" it happened then [60yrs ago] and no one blamed anything/one,.........sometimes it gets really cold 

Only watched part of the program but was 13 at the time and distinctly remember a science master telling us that the science community considered it the start of the new ice age as temperatures had been falling for several years.

[marsh man]

4 minutes ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, I never watch the programme but I remember it well as it started on my 13th birthday 🤔, 3 months of hell 😁

I left school that Christmas and started work at a small builders in town the day after Boxing day which was the norm then , after a couple of weeks of cleaning up the workshop and the small plant such as mixers we got laid off for inclement weather , we were off for nearly six weeks and the longest spell off work until I retired , it was certainly cold .

9 minutes ago, islandgun said:

Didn't see the programme but remember the winter, I was ten and explored every way i could, to enjoy it, Dont quite get  "with all the extreme weather we get it could happen again" it happened then [60yrs ago] and no one blamed anything/one,.........sometimes it gets really cold 

I dare say with all this talk about global warming and having a record temp in the Summer we tend to think that another bad winter just won't happen , then a few years ago we got the Beast From The East and all the global warning talk was put on the back burner .

[ditchman]

dont watch anything with packham in it

[enfieldspares]

38 minutes ago, marsh man said:

I found it very interesting with all the old footage from one of the worst winters in living memory , the only downside was Mr C Packham was part of the program , it started on December the 22nd and apart from three days where there was a slight thaw it continued freezing cold till nearly March , it was stated that when the severe Winter finally surrendered that half of the country's bird life had perished , parts of the sea froze over and a lot of the inland waterways and rivers froze solid to the extent where you drive a motor over lakes and rivers , when it finished the presenter said with all the extreme weather we get that another winter like the above could certainly happen again .

See it? I lived it! 

[oldypigeonpopper]

1 minute ago, marsh man said:

I left school that Christmas and started work at a small builders in town the day after Boxing day which was the norm then , after a couple of weeks of cleaning up the workshop and the small plant such as mixers we got laid off for inclement weather , we were off for nearly six weeks and the longest spell off work until I retired , it was certainly cold .

I dare say with all this talk about global warming and having a record temp in the Summer we tend to think that another bad winter just won't happen , then a few years ago we got the Beast From The East and all the global warning talk was put on the back burner .

Hello, I remember having a lot of time off school as coaches could not run, our coal fire going 24/7 , made a sledge , local brook, The Ginge was frozen about 1ft deep , pigeons were dieing off the frozen kale , I use to help on local farm , milking and mucking out , it was blooming cold 🙄

[adzyvilla]

Ahhhh, my dads favourite subject. Guaranteed to be his go to reminiscence in a game of cold weather top trumps. As children, my siblings and I would roll our eyes as he held forth on another story from that winter. From shooting dozens of hares that had come into the garden and were stripping bark from the fruit trees, to lumpy diesel making starting tractors impossible, tying hessian sacks around his legs with baler twine to keep the cold out and 12ft deep snow drifts making vehicle travel impossible. Somehow he survived to tell the tale, having left school the previous year and was working as a cattleman. Even though he isn't a member of the forum, he'll probably feel this thread through the force and be along in a moment...

[Shambam1962]

My mother reminds me every year, how deep the snow was, as I was born on 25th December 1962.

[Minky]

My eldest sister was married and lived in Hastings. Whilst out shopping she said that sparrows were falling of off the shop fronts into peoples shopping bags. The bloke that I was apprenticed under told me that that during that winter there was so much snow down near  Folkstone that highways dozed it up into BIG PILES.  These piles were still visable well into June .  A year that I remember was 86.  There are still the scrape Mark's on some roads around here caused by the teeth on loader buckets when they were dozing the snow up over hedges.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Minky

[harrycatcat1]

I remember this period even though I was only 6 nearly 7. We didn't have central heating until the "modernisation" so the only heating was a coal fire. The inside of the bedroom windows had thick ice on them for ages. We only had a downstairs toilet with a little oil lamp under the pipes to stop them freezing.  My dad complained because he used to have to light fires under the deisel tanks on the lorries as he was the transport manager.

Those were the days 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Walker570]

I had just joined and was serving my two years probation in the police service at the time.  I broke all records for falling off a Lambretta scooter, although I got so used to it I used to just step off and let it go.  We had frozen snow on the roadsides in Walmley, near Sutton Coldfield until mid April.   I also remember 1947 when the snow in the farmyard was deep enough to be above my head and the milk was stored in churns buried in the snow for a week till the milk wagon managed to get across from Birmingham. Milk then was collected daily in 12 gallon churns and a big herd of cows was around 30 head.

We never failed to get sufficient snow back then to toboggan for weeks down our fields.  Amazingly we all survived.

100 mill here today and the media go into panic mode.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Walker570

[marsh man]

Something I could never work out was ,why did it take so long before W A G B I put a cold weather ban on shooting wildfowl , by then the damage was done and I hate to think the variety of duck we shot that had come onto the estuary when all the Broads froze up solid , one thing I clearly remember was virtually rowing up to a raft of Coots and giving them one , well two really when they ran along the water and took off , these were gathered up and we took them up to Pettits in Reedham , the chap felt there breast and funny enough they were in good condition , we got about two bob each and that paid for the bus and a couple of boxes of cartridges , when I say a couple of boxes , the boxes only contained 10 and were the hefty sum of five bob a box ( 25p ) , no food banks then to help us out 

Below is a photo when the thaw began 

 

[Yellow Bear]

4 minutes ago, Walker570 said:

100 mill here today and the media go into panic mode.

that's 10mm in London that drives panic mode

[marsh man]

22 minutes ago, harrycatcat1 said:

I remember this period even though I was only 6 nearly 7. We didn't have central heating until the "modernisation" so the only heating was a coal fire. The inside of the bedroom windows had thick ice on them for ages. We only had a downstairs toilet with a little oil lamp under the pipes to stop them freezing.  My dad complained because he used to have to light fires under the deisel tanks on the lorries as he was the transport manager.

Those were the days 🤣🤣🤣🤣

We never knew central heated existed in the early 60s , our village school rads were off more times then they were on , we often sat in the class room with our coats and gloves on as it was so cold , in our little terrace house the toilet was down the back yard and was covered with sacks , even so it still froze the lead pipe and very often had to put a kettle  of hot water down them so we could flush the toilet , I often lite the middle room coal fire , this was an art in itself , a few pages of the Eastern Evening News , a few sticks on top and a few small lumps of coal , after lighting the paper I held up a sheet of paper in the opening to draw it , this often sounded like a train and then the paper started to turn brown , just before it ignited it was quickly rolled up and chucked in the roaring fire , maybe a few sparks coming out of the pot now and again but that one fire had to heat the house up as the one in the front room was only lite at Christmas 

[harrycatcat1]

19 minutes ago, marsh man said:

We never knew central heated existed in the early 60s , our village school rads were off more times then they were on , we often sat in the class room with our coats and gloves on as it was so cold , in our little terrace house the toilet was down the back yard and was covered with sacks , even so it still froze the lead pipe and very often had to put a kettle  of hot water down them so we could flush the toilet , I often lite the middle room coal fire , this was an art in itself , a few pages of the Eastern Evening News , a few sticks on top and a few small lumps of coal , after lighting the paper I held up a sheet of paper in the opening to draw it , this often sounded like a train and then the paper started to turn brown , just before it ignited it was quickly rolled up and chucked in the roaring fire , maybe a few sparks coming out of the pot now and again but that one fire had to heat the house up as the one in the front room was only lite at Christmas 

Where you went wrong was not putting the coal shovel vertical on the fender and then put the newspaper on to draw the fire up 😉😉😉🤣🤣👍👍

[Minky]

Dont forget that double glazing only became more common in the 90s.  Up until them it was only single glazing and if it was -5c outside it wasn't that much more inside with frozen ferns on the inside.  Paraffin heaters.?  Then gas bottle cabinet heaters became more the main.  I don't even know where I  would  it paraffin nowadays.  All the garages and even greengrocers sold it loose from a small bulk tank out the back somewhere and the grannies used to Toddle up with the little beige cans with a little spout. Esso blue advert.

[marsh man]

4 minutes ago, harrycatcat1 said:

Where you went wrong was not putting the coal shovel vertical on the fender and then put the newspaper on to draw the fire up 😉😉😉🤣🤣👍👍

When I said coal Harry ,I forgot to add it was designed to keep steam trains running up and down to Norwich , very handy at the time with the big coal yard running right up to the river bank which was dead oppisite our boat shed , one or two bits that rolled down the embankment was often put in the punt when coming back from a moon light flight , and maybe one or two bits that didn't roll down , still that was a long time ago and I am sure the police haven't got the resources to go back to over 50 years ago , after all it was all done for a good course , the only thing we found wrong with it was it smoked a fair bit , and I often smiled to myself when some of the ole fowlers who had a gun punt had the same colour smoke coming out of there pots as ours 

[Minky]

We must have been a lot more hardy back when because I still had short trousers in the winter and walked to school and back in the dark on my own a mile and a half partly down a lane.  Nowadays it would be considered almost child neglect.  I don't remember my legs and feet being frozen solid though.

[harrycatcat1]

20 minutes ago, marsh man said:

When I said coal Harry ,I forgot to add it was designed to keep steam trains running up and down to Norwich , very handy at the time with the big coal yard running right up to the river bank which was dead oppisite our boat shed , one or two bits that rolled down the embankment was often put in the punt when coming back from a moon light flight , and maybe one or two bits that didn't roll down , still that was a long time ago and I am sure the police haven't got the resources to go back to over 50 years ago , after all it was all done for a good course , the only thing we found wrong with it was it smoked a fair bit , and I often smiled to myself when some of the ole fowlers who had a gun punt had the same colour smoke coming out of there pots as ours 

Mid 70's I used to work on steam and deisel locos in the engine shed at Park Hill Colliery at Wakefield. There was no shortage of coal for us 😉😉😉🤣🤣🤣

[marsh man]

27 minutes ago, Minky said:

We must have been a lot more hardy back when because I still had short trousers in the winter and walked to school and back in the dark on my own a mile and a half partly down a lane.  Nowadays it would be considered almost child neglect.  I don't remember my legs and feet being frozen solid though.

One of the coldest days I can ever remember in that winter was when they forecast Black  ice ,at the time we never even knew what it was , my main shooting coat was a Paratroopers  camo jacket and to be honest it was hopeless in the wet weather , the day in question was a wet drizzly day that was well below freezing , I can remember walking up our South wall and the big lumps of ice were scattered right over the mud flats , when my gun barrel started to get wet it just froze up and the ice ended up being bigger than the barrels , my hand were so cold I couldn't had put the safety catch on so I turned round to walk back home , when I got back my hands were numb and I couldn't pull the zip down on my camo coat so my ole chap had to pull the zip down for me , when I took it off he stood it up in the corner as it had froze up solid and was stiff as a board , no wonder I get a few aches and pains , mind you it's a bigger wonder I am still here to talk about , but here I am still tramping about on the same marshes  

[Sciurus]

My memories were permanent chilblains on hands and toes, playing rugby- ouch! Oil lamps and sacking in outside privy, bedsocks, balaclavas, when we all pretended to be the Sherriff of Nottingham, sea frozen over in Blackpool and best of all, skating at night with a lantern and car headlights. The ice used to creak alarmingly at night.