Winterwatch 1963 - The Big Freeze

[julesapple]

Just watching this; The BH is fascinated - he was three/four months old and living in an isolated Somerset farm. He remembers his grandparents saying how badly hit they were. There are photos of him propped in a biscuit tin being pulled along the frozen Bridgwater Canal. They had up to twenty foot of snow in places, with livestock stuck and unfed.

Any guesses as to how we'd manage nowadays with seven, or more, weeks of impenetrably deep snow? Surely we've progressed in fifty years? I doubt it.

I think it would be unutterably chaotic....beyond chaos.

[Tripmeup]

Think of the film "The Day after Tomorrow" Jules... Probably something worse than that!!

[julesapple]

I may have seen that - inadvertently.

Cliff Mitchelmore has just announced that most parts of the country were reliant on the local railways. Well, we're all doomed then, if it happens again. Most of those railway branchlines are long gone.

[SarzWix]

Farmers wouldn't have routinely had snow-ploughs for their tractors, council gritters/snow-ploughs wouldn't have been so prolific, snow tires/chains wouldn't have been so common, shops and supermarkets wouldn't have been so well stocked... I think we'd have a week of chaos and then we'd get on with it just fine

[Glutton4...]

Back then folk were more neighbourly, and automatically looked out for each other. Those that could, did. Whilst those that couldn't, were grateful for the help and assistance of others.

Nowadays, all the selfish, greedy ignorant idiots would clear the shelves in their 's*d-you-I'm-ok' attitude, and other folk would struggle.

Call me cynical...

[veggiechicken]

I love all the "way back then" references - makes me feel so ancient
It was the year I left school and TBH I don't remember much about it. We always seemed to have snow. We had no central heating anyway, just a coal fire in one room, so we always spent the winter wearing lots of clothes. Supermarkets didn't exist as we know them now, so everything came from the corner shop or locally and they made every effort to get milk and bread in.
Yes, everyone looked out for each other and there was none of the H&S stuff that made folk wary of clearing the pavements in case they were sued.
I'd better stop now before someone trots out the 4 Yorkshire men skit

[zazen999]

4 Yorkshire men? In our day we had one and we grateful for that!

[veggiechicken]

Aye - and he was very small.............

[Glutton4...]

I love all the "way back then" references - makes me feel so ancient It was the year I left school ...

I was born in the middle of it!

Two weeks early, allegedly, as my Mum helped to push my Dad's car out of the snow and has always said that started things off!

I've never been early for anything since, though!

[veggiechicken]

I was born in the Great Snow of 1947! Much the same story. They kept Mum & her little baby (awwwww!) in hospital for 2 weeks as we couldn't go back to a frozen up house. Eventually my dad could get to the hospital to pick us up in his little Austin 7 and apparently, he forgot to bring shoes and a coat for Mum and she had to plod out to the car through the snow, in her slippers and dressing gown!
It was a standing joke for years!

[Glutton4...]

Men, huh!!!!

[bearded bloke]

On the plus side us lot with our planet killing 4x4's would get very popular very quickly

[alldigging]

supermarkets wouldn't have been so well stocked... I think we'd have a week of chaos and then we'd get on with it just fine

Supermarkets use 'just in time' stock methods which mean they would run out of lots of things. Especially when people seem to panic buy the moment a snowflake starts to fall.

[veggiechicken]

In 1975 (or whenever the big snow was in the '70s) my job was "milk" - which had a statutory maximum price per litre. During the snow, many shops put the price up and I had to deal with all the phone calls from irate people and the press - and walk the 3 miles to work each day for the pleasure of being abused!!. Shop windows were being broken and shop keepers threatened because they had put the price up by a penny - it was amazing how society could descend into anarchy within the space of a few days. Quite frightening really

[Aberdeenplotter]

It's what happens when suppliers try to cream off the profits