We Have Turned a Corner

[SteveO]

I remember the winter of '63. We had 10ft drifts on the moors in Yorkshire. There were no buses, so we had to walk the 2 miles to school. After the first couple of weeks, we were allowed to wear long trousers.

 

Steve

 

[grendel]

in '63 I was three, all I can remember was we moved into a new house with conifers down the side of the garden, I was later told that because of the weather my parents couldnt get a coal supplier, so the conifers went on the fire to keep us warm.

[ranworthbreeze]

In 1963 I was 12, we had a paraffin heater in the kitchen, two coal fires and a small paraffin heater in the bathroom to keep the pipes from freezing, even with those we still had frost on the inside of the windows. I used to put my cloths at the bottom of the bed so they were warmer in the morning. 

Plenty of snow but sadly the school was only up the hill so lessons as usual unless the teachers could not get in.

On the main road, on some spare land was a very large wooden plow, horses were brought up to clear the road towards Mosborough and Eckington, as with all plows it created a wall at each side of the road.

Plenty of sledging but so cold as I remember it.

Regards

Alan

[Hylander]

There were no buses, so we had to walk the 2 miles to school.

Can you imagine asking the little darlings to do that now.

 

 

 

 

[TheQ]

We used to get frost inside the windows any winter till we moved to a house in the outer Hebrides with night storage central heating in 1971.

The 63 snow we were living at my maternal grandparents on the edge of Salisbury plain, I opened the back door to find the snow higher than my self, it had banked up there!

The walk to school was only a couple of hundred yards, but we always had to wear shorts and go out to the play ground at play time.

But although you couldnt see it you still couldn't see it the teacher stood on the school end of the white line dividing the girls and boys  half's of the playground would NOT let you cross it. The other end of the line was the outside toilets which not surprisingly were frozen solid for weeks!

 As for coal that grandfather worked on the railway a couple of hundred yards away, but through trains had already been closed down by BR cuts. So I've no doubt extra coal could come from there  and the other side of the family my paternal grandmother was sister to the brothers that owned the coal merchants!!

[SPEEDTRIPLE]

6 hours ago, Hylander said:

There were no buses, so we had to walk the 2 miles to school.

Can you imagine asking the little darlings to do that now.

 

 

 

 

No, they would`nt have to, all the schools would be closed due to Health and Safety.

[littlesprite]

During the 63 winter most houses didn't have central heating, ice on the inside of windows was common place every winter. We always had a store shed stacked with logs and pine cones collected during the year, with that and the paraffin heaters we seemed to manage.

A two mile trek to school was the normal, but again, because it was normal no one thought to query it, coming home down whitehill was very fast as it became known as the toboggan run, any piece of wood or metal sheet became our transport.

It is surprising how quickly people can adapt to extremes and find ways of keeping things going, even the newer generation (who have had a softer upbringing) would soon learn some of the forgotten skills and muddle through.

[Hockham Admiral]

I was living in a wooden Seco hut at RAF Topcliffe that winter.

Uni-Seco Structures (Selection Engineering Company), mass producers of timber huts for the military in WW2. A timber frame clad with asbestos sheets and a timber roof of shallow pitch with a plasterboard ceiling beneath,The prefabricated panels were a sandwich with a wood-wool filling between sheets of corrugated asbestos-cement, supplied by Turners Asbestos Cement Co Ltd.

I can tell you that they were exceptionally cold, even though the batmen used to try to keep a coal fire burning in most rooms. The more junior you were the less chance you had.... I was an Acting Pilot Officer!

But we kept warm in the daylight hours as the Group Captain Station Commander had decided to make his mark with the RAF Hierarchy by opening the runway and flying the Vickers Varsities off it.

EVERY man and woman was out on the runway with pickaxes and shovels; after four days we cleared a long and wide enough stretch to get airborne...

And yes, he did get promoted again!

[grendel]

I too was brought up with ice on windows and long walks to school, I also was brought up with getting bronchiolitis every winter and missing a month of school.

with central heating, thats one thing I dont miss. when I was brought up we had a coal fire in the lounge, and a parrafin heater (old oil stove) in the kitchen. we kept the parrafin in glass gallon bottles in the shed, plus a 5 gallon can with a tap to fill the bottles from. I remember the day the oil stove was knocked over and caught fire, my dad threw it out of the back door and let it burn itself out.

Grendel

[TheQ]

7 hours ago, Hockham Admiral said:

I was living in a wooden Seco hut at RAF Topcliffe that winter.

Uni-Seco Structures (Selection Engineering Company), mass producers of timber huts for the military in WW2. A timber frame clad with asbestos sheets and a timber roof of shallow pitch with a plasterboard ceiling beneath,The prefabricated panels were a sandwich with a wood-wool filling between sheets of corrugated asbestos-cement, supplied by Turners Asbestos Cement Co Ltd.

The concrete version of these were still in use by the RAF as accommodation  until the early 1990s, these Temporary buildings put up in the 1940s had no insulation and were bxxxxy cold. Steel framed single glazed windows didn't help either.

In the Falklands today the RAF Mount Pleasant accommodation is wooden huts, admittedly they are insulated and double glazed but still very cold.