The Big Freeze of 1963

[bizzard]

I built seven different Snow women, one for every day of the week. They all turned out to be friged.

Edited November 25, 2017 by bizzard

[artleknock]

25 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

That's because you are I'm afraid to have to say

But I don't feel it (not often)

[mark99]

Just need to open the front door and let  the ecofans melt it all away. That will show you disbeleivers.

Edited November 25, 2017 by mark99

[mrsmelly]

48 minutes ago, mark99 said:

Just need to open the front door and let  the ecofans melt it all away. That will show you disbeleivers.

Bless.

1 hour ago, artleknock said:

But I don't feel it (not often)

My old Mum says she thinks the same in her head as when she was eighteen but her body no longer believes her. Her 97th Birthday on Monday.

[Sea Dog]

Happy Birthday to Great Grandma Smelly! 

[artleknock]

1 hour ago, mrsmelly said:

Bless.

My old Mum says she thinks the same in her head as when she was eighteen but her body no longer believes her. Her 97th Birthday on Monday.

Beats mine, she is 95 in April, still plays games on her tablet but is not very mobile now.

 

[mrsmelly]

5 minutes ago, artleknock said:

Beats mine, she is 95 in April, still plays games on her tablet but is not very mobile now.

 

Fantastic aren't they. My mum texts us and her grandkids and great grandkids and great great grandkids though they are youngish. She taught herself how to use an I pad seven years ago when my dad died but she has forgotten most of how it works since . Still living in her own home, no carers but loads of support from friends.

[Derek R.]

I got told a little rhyme that locked me into centigrade:  "Five, ten and twenty one - Winter, Spring and Summer Sun". But still a feet and inches man; still think in pounds and ounces, and always work out fuel consumption by having to mess about turning litres into gallons to get - miles per. But don't get me started on metres. And sheets of board are still 8' x 4', studding 4" x 2". Not unknown for me to convert decimal money into £. s. d. too.

Edited November 25, 2017 by Derek R.
typo (what a surprise)

[pete harrison]

The Grand Union Canal traffic records I have just inspected state that the canal (most likely at Braunston) was frozen to traffic from 24 December 1962 following NUNEATON passing north empty at 07:15 (or 19:15) until 11 March 1963, with the first boat through being STIRLING passing south at 12:45 bound for Colne Valley Sewage Works ('Stink Hole')  

edit = spelling.

Edited November 25, 2017 by pete harrison

[Wanderer Vagabond]

10 hours ago, matty40s said:

Something on the scale of 1963 would absolutely cripple this country beyond belief. The manual workers are not available to keep anything moving on the ground. Distribution chains for all retail would fall apart and there is no longer the stocks of grit /salt that would be needed to keep roads open for more than a limited period.

It will happen again, 2010 was a small warning - a notable event in our recent memories but nowhere near the length of time or depth of cold/snow that 1963 gave us.

I think that is certainly a point to consider. Back in 1963 we shopped at local grocers, greengrocers,bakers etc obviously the greengrocer took in daily deliveries but the rest had a stockroom where they kept stock so even without deliveries for a week or more they could still trade (even the baker had a couple of weeks stock of flour). Our current supermarkets rely on the 'just in time' model, if you go out the back there is no stock at all, without a daily delivery they will run out of stuff to trade very quickly.

[Slim]

I remember having to go out into the cold every evening and help push dad's car into the kerb when he got home from work. life was hard in the middle ages 

[jeannette smith harrison]

I was with my Grandparents @ Bulls Bridge & was going with the last remaining boat kids that where taken to the School in Norwood Green.

Mum & Dad where @ trout lane  just before Packet Boat Marina ,half way through the freeze my parents got a house

so I was sent back to them to attend the local school

Dad got work on the bank & granddad worked in the sheeting store @ Bulls bridge until he retired & moved to Yewsley

At its worst you could walk from the layby across to the other side of the cut

[jake_crew]

21 hours ago, Athy said:

 I find it a useful aide-memoire that 28 = 82.

And 16 is near enough 61

 

 

Edited November 26, 2017 by jake_crew

[Athy]

3 minutes ago, jake_crew said:

And 16 is near enough 61

 

 

Yes! I had forgotten that one, well remembered.

[royg]

We did not have a great amount of snow in West Lancashire, but the fleet of John Parke recently taken over by BW in Spring 1962 was split into two. Many managed to return to Liverpool before the freeze set in. Several were stranded at Dean Lock Gathurst Nr Wigan, including M/b Atherton (BW) Wooden Dumb Boats 'Bembo' (short boat) and long boats 'Scorpio', 'Juno','Marco' and 'Carlo' plus tug 'Sulzer', until early March. See pictures in Narrowboat Spring 2011. Coal  was sent by road to Litherland Lift Bridge where a temporary ramp was made to load the boats. What a fiasco it was, plenty of coal ended up in the canal and if reports are to be believed some of the wagon drivers were selling coal end route from Shevington. Due to the many factories using  and returning water into the canal it never froze to a great depth and the steel boats of BW were able to ice break. I remember M/b 'Angelo' returning light with the brass nut only just holding the prop on, due to the ice blocks vibrating against it. I lived on fish and chips nearly every lunch at Litherland and help check the wagons in as their was no weigh bridge. The main carriers were Oliver Hart (8 leggers) and S. T. Rosbothams. I ended up ruining a beige crombie coat. Happy Days.

Roy Gibbons                                                                                                                                                            

 

[Dav and Pen]

This winter was when how the late david Blagrove came to live at Stoke B he was frozen in over Christmas. 

I was helping a friend who had a coal business and a ford 4d which didn’t like starting in the freezing weather, we had to put a burning rag over the air intake to persuade it every morning. The coal in the railway trucks was solid and the roads difficult so we didn’t make much money in the end. Every morning all the lorries who had parked overnight had little fires under the fuel tanks as the diesel had waxed up. One day at Bobs cafe on the a45 we were having a mug of tea and as Arnie when a driver came in and asked for a nights room, they were all taken so he said I’ll sleep in the cab then going no further. He was in an Atkinson which had the engine in the middle of the cab no room for sleeping. He had taken 8 hours from London. Load explosives!

[jeannette smith harrison]

Attatched photo was sent to me a few years back by David he was sent it by waterways world who had  asked him to identify some of the people in the photo .

David thought it quite funny as this was the day he came to Stoke Brurne to view & sign paperwork for the home he & Jean  lived in for many years .

He waited around as he knew we where due through that day & Uncle Mark was David's friend from his working days @ Brentford & they had got each other in & out of many  a scrape over the years .

second left is David Blagrove (bowler hat) he is talking to my Grandad on the boat is Grandads brother Mark Harrison on the  right (blue cardi) is Dolly & standing on the gate blue trousers is me .Grandad  had gone along with them to help & taken me with him to see my cousins .

I think this was early summer or Easter  after the freeze 

Edited November 26, 2017 by jeannette smith harrison

[Heartland]

The winter of 1962 through to 1963 can be said to have a catastrophic effect on midland canal carriers. I was told by one boatman the ice was broken up to keep traffic moving, but in sone places no water was left and craft were left stranded and sometimes damaged by the ice

[Ray T]

There are a couple of pictures of the big freeze in the new book by Mike Webb, The Twilight Years of Narrow Boat Carrying

[X Alan W]

On 11/25/2017 at 16:31, artleknock said:

You lot make me feel old. I was in the RAF at the time, stationed at RAF Bishops Court in N.Ireland. I was recently married and had a flat in Belfast, traveling to work each day. For a full week the camp was snowed in and I couldn't get there. I was marked up as absent with permision. Snow did me a favour. The only vehicle moving was the camps 6 wheel drive fire tender and that was doing 'humanitarian' work around local farms and smallholdings.

Thank your stars you're a mere boy I done my 5 years & escaped the RAF in 58only to get a job working on the cut & ending up iced in for 13 weeks

[Tam & Di]

Our no.1 son was 6 months old. We'd been living with a friend on his Thames barge at Brentford and just bought a boat of our own moored on the GU at Cowley Peachey. Water everywhere was frozen solid other than a thin wedge between the boat and the bank, and horses had come across the frozen gravel pit and were leaning on our boat to get a drink.

Sadly this prolonged freeze was pretty much the final nail in the coffin of canal carriage - once freights had moved on to lorries they stayed there even after the thaw.

[Midnight Rider]

I was working at Stratford on Avon & walked over both the basin & the river. Happy days.

[Sea Dog]

19 minutes ago, Midnight Rider said:

I was working at Stratford on Avon & walked over both the basin & the river. Happy days.

You won't be doing that again I doubt, whatever the weather does.

"Oi, you! Gerroff that ice!"  Elf an safety, innit.. 

[artleknock]

We don't get winters the way we used to. I remember before '63 it must have been about '54 or '55 the river nene froze over, the ice was about 2" thick, the water level dropped leaving the ice supported on both banks, like a big hammock, my mate Doug Britchford stepped on to the ice to show it would hold his weight and slipped down to the middle. Couldn't get out again, we had to go to Irthlingborough sewage farm and borrow a rope to throw to him. It was the same year that a spring in the corner of the field next to the Co-op laundry formed a volcano, the water was rising out the middle and freezing on the sides, it formed a cone of ice about 10 feet tall.

[Rob-M]

I remember spending Christmas on the boat in the early 80's I think. The canal at Alvechurch froze solid then and for a couple of weeks we walked up and down on the ice.