Sorry for the short notice but Channel 5 tonight 24.2.22 at 21.00 there is a 1½ hour prog about the winter of 1963 (which many of us old farts will remember well)
Whether there's any railways featured I know not, but it will be quite interesting especially to the 'youngsters' on the forum
I was at secondary school in 63 and we didn't miss a day of schooling. We had to sit in our overcoats one day when the heating packed up.
was that when they tried lashing RAF jet engines to a flat wagon to clear the snow ?
I spent the week before Christmas in the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading with pneumonia.
Quote from: Malc on February 25, 2022, 02:11:38 PM
I was at secondary school in 63 and we didn't miss a day of schooling. We had to sit in our overcoats one day when the heating packed up.
I was at Junior School which opened every day. We wore coats and hats in class and walked to school in snow and ice.
No one froze to death and no one broke any bones.Oh and we had great fun wizzing snowballs at each other and generally skating about the playground.
Great fun and wonderful days.
Were you allowed to wear long trousers or did you have to go to school in shorts ?
Quote from: port perran on February 25, 2022, 05:05:36 PM
Quote from: Malc on February 25, 2022, 02:11:38 PM
I was at secondary school in 63 and we didn't miss a day of schooling. We had to sit in our overcoats one day when the heating packed up.
I was at Junior School which opened every day. We wore coats and hats in class and walked to school in snow and ice.
No one froze to death and no one broke any bones.Oh and we had great fun wizzing snowballs at each other and generally skating about the playground.
Great fun and wonderful days.
obviously pre 'elf 'n safety, or you'd have had to wear goggles, gloves, and heavens knows what else.
of course, those were the days when you looked after yourself, had common sense, and didn't need so me 'specialist with a university degree' to tell you not to fall over.
HAPPY DAYS !!
Quote from: class37025 on February 25, 2022, 02:42:14 PM
was that when they tried lashing RAF jet engines to a flat wagon to clear the snow ?
Scroll down a bit on this link
https://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=2170 (https://www.merthyr-history.com/?p=2170)
There's a very good reason I don't remember this :D
Quote from: joe cassidy on February 25, 2022, 05:07:43 PM
Were you allowed to wear long trousers or did you have to go to school in shorts ?
Shorts. No long trousers till senior school
Despite the fact that I was 14 at the time, I actually have very little memory of it. I can only assume that life continued much as usual. I remember my Dad going into the centre of Cambridge and taking photos, including this one:
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/114/2975-031021163056.jpeg)
As far as I can remember we all went to school as usual, so the buses must have been running. Anyway, I recorded the programme so I will be interested to see what I apparently slept through!
Cheers,
Chris
and before someone complains I USED to have great respect for those who had been to uni and had gained degrees, nowadays it seems every one is shoveled into uni [ and of course debt ] which will probably never be repaid so becomes a burden on the tax payer, ie the rest of us, while gaining degrees that have absolutely no point, other than of course to earn unis money.
graduates of unis have made some amazing differences to all our lives, but it seems TO ME that there is a culture of demanding uni degrees, rather than the old style training that used to work.
ie
student nurse, state enroled nurse, state registered nurse, etc.
now you need a uni course.
i remember the winter of 63..i had been allowed to leave school--for good-----
I remember drifts so tall you had to be careful when opening the front door lest it all just fell into the hallway. We had to dig a virtual tunnel out to the pavement before we could walk anywhere.
Much to the disgust of the few car owners on the road we created long ice slides whereby with a good run up you could 'skate' for maybe 10 yards or more. On some hills just outside the town we'd build a snow wall at the bottom of the hill and then sled into it to see if we could get right through it rather than be stuck in it.
my memory of winter 63, building an igloo on the road outside our house with my mates, in a street of 100+ houses there were possibly 5 cars, so no worry about blocking the traffic.
I would have been 11 at the time, but like Papyrus, I have little memory of it. I do remember making slides in the junior school playground, and load of snow falling on me from the roof of a shop, but that could have been any winter in the NE.
i don t remember it ..... i was being created oops paul
I lived in Slough and I spent the Xmas of 1962 in hospital for the removal of my appendix. I was allowed back to school , but had to take the bus (not allowed to ride my bike) and the snow was 2 foot around the bus stop area.
The GP came to see me a number of times when released from hospital and he was interested in my Tri-ang railway. Had a Jinty, Princess Elizabeth, Lord of the Isles and the Blue Austrailian loco. All disposed of years ago. Had the grey basic track which at the time looked realistic.
Was that the early Triang standard track which reminds me very much of Kato?
Quote from: Bealman on February 26, 2022, 09:32:58 AM
Was that the early Triang standard track which reminds me very much of Kato?
Hello
I have only used N gauge Peco track. I did a google search on "Triang grey track" and that brought up photos of the track that I had.
Regards
I watched the programme at 05.15 this morning and found it fascinating. Of course, I only remember it from a 10 year old's perspective so it was all, fun, fun, fun at the time.
BR featured quite well as our vastly different road system ground to a halt so villages were cut off from buses etc. Luckily the Beeching cuts hadn't got a grip at the time so much of the rail network was still in place and stepped up to the (foot) plate. Steam was recalled to replace all those modern diesels whose fuel had frozen up!
As children we were unaware of the hardships suffered by the farmers with their livestock, and the effects of smog owing to the sheer number of household chimneys belching their filth into the air. Then there was the crazy 'Pools Panel' who just guessed at results of footie matches which never took place ;D
Definitely a 'keeper' to watch again sometime.
Reminds me of the 1981 freeze in the West of England/Wales.
I was in Swansea at the time. The M4 motorway was impassible for several days so we were cut off from the rest of the country.
In spite of the difficult conditions everyone remained in good spirits.
I remember people skiing in the streets of Swansea.
Like @Papyrus (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=2975) and @Bealman (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=255), I can not recall anything abnormal about the big freeze. I was 12 at the time, so will have been at secondary school. The school was a couple of miles from home and we lived at the top of a hill, so when the pavements and roads were icy, it could be fun! :)
Quote from: class37025 on February 25, 2022, 06:11:37 PM
graduates of unis have made some amazing differences to all our lives, but it seems TO ME that there is a culture of demanding uni degrees, rather than the old style training that used to work.
ie
student nurse, state enroled nurse, state registered nurse, etc.
now you need a uni course.
You are correct, graduates of unis have made some amazing differences to all our lives, especially in the fleid of medical science.
Maybe that's why nurses need more training today than they did 50 years ago ?
or perhaps uni's just need more money.
remember teaching hospitals ?
I'm not going to get involved in this particular discussion, but what is it doing in a thread about a TV programme on the big freeze?
:confused1:
cheers,
Chris
I was in Swansea at the time. The M4 motorway was impassible for several days so we were cut off from the rest of the country.
I'm guessing most of the welch considered that a bonus :thumbsup: :D
Opened my grandparents back door and the snow fell in on me.. Dad was just out of the RAF and we hadn't been allocated a council house yet.
Walking to school, in shorts,
School milk frozen so they left it by the radiator to defrost, by playtime when it was issued it was warm and going off but you were forced to drink it.
Outside toilets the sitters half full of snow as it blew in.
The snow covered the white line down the middle of the playground but the teacher stood one yelled at you if a boy crossed to the girls side or the other way around.
Granddad was a ganger, so he was out clearing points, though the through line had already been cut pre beeching.
Quote from: The Q on February 26, 2022, 04:39:40 PM
Outside toilets the sitters half full of snow as it blew in.
Spelling error or an attempt to avoid the forum censor? ;)
My wife used to tell the story of she and her siblings building a very large igloo. When the thaw came the igloo shrank gradually and she was convinced that it was her that was growing faster each day as getting into the igloo became more and more difficult.
Quote from: port perran on February 25, 2022, 05:05:36 PM
Quote from: Malc on February 25, 2022, 02:11:38 PM
I was at secondary school in 63 and we didn't miss a day of schooling. We had to sit in our overcoats one day when the heating packed up.
I was at Junior School which opened every day. We wore coats and hats in class and walked to school in snow and ice.
No one froze to death and no one broke any bones.Oh and we had great fun wizzing snowballs at each other and generally skating about the playground.
Great fun and wonderful days.
Pre 'freedom of choice' of placements it happened often enough. These days, where children are bussed and driven several miles, sometimes several tens of miles, each day to school it wouldn't happen. Back in the 1980s we had a few bad snow days in County Durham. One local secondary school, bussing some of their pupils ten miles each way even then had a head who insisted on keeping the school open in rapidly deteriorating conditions. End of school day came, most of the busses did too. Several hours later, with a couple of buses stuck on hills the kids disembarked and started to walk home amid sliding and slipping cars on the road. The head got a private blistering from the County for that one.
left school in summer '62, joined the Met office in the autumn, and was in London in the winter, first time I'd come across smog, while on a training course at Stanmore.
on completion of the course, headed to Bracknell, no smog, but deep drifts of some white stuff...
advantage was that between work and the accommodation was a pub, with a very understanding landlord...
'dirty half's' during the month, when funds were low, with a recompense when payday came around.
and a big log fire to enjoy them by.
suitably dried and warmed, we then headed back to the accomodation :angel:
I was six, and still walked to and from school daily. Just missed being buried under snow on the way home one day, though, when the local coalman's office roof shed its load of melting snow. It just slid off with no warning, missing me and a friend by only a couple of feet.
Main memory is going to my local harbour and seeing pancake ice all the way across, and the small harbour ferry barely managing to move because of it; and humungous icicles on next door's house back wall.
I seem to remember helicopter shots of the Forces delivering food to isolated communities, and fodder to animals; but that could be something else.
Martyn
Mass snowball fights at break times at school, and no teacher bawling "Stop that" just in case some poor sap caught one in the face ::) (You could always tell the 'good snow' as if one hit a wall it left a small mound of snow attached to the wall :D)
Nowadays schools have to protect themselves from litigation so all sorts of rules apply. After all, we can't have our little angels suffering any form of injury, mental or physical. Grazes and bruises used to be worn like a badge of pride, and that was just the girls!! Animals they were, especially on the mixed hockey fields :laugh:
Quote from: Newportnobby on February 27, 2022, 04:29:23 PM
Grazes and bruises used to be worn like a badge of pride, and that was just the girls!! Animals they were, especially on the mixed hockey fields :laugh:
The worst hockey match we played was a "friendly" against the girls' high school. Carnage. Their old style sticks got into areas others couldn't.
wasn't by any chance the Alice Ottley school from Worcester.
they were SCAREY !
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alice_Ottley_School
IIRC there was also the Worcester college for the blind, for who's rowing crews we supplied coxes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_College_Worcester
In my case it was the mixed 'Radcliffe Grammar School' in Wolverton and, boy, did those girls know how to use the Indian heads on their hockey sticks :ouch:
And yes, we had to play such sports come snow, rain, hail, wind, sun etc in leaky old plimsolls
Try playing Shinty, triangular Caman aka shinty stick now they are vicious.. The Stick may be used to block or tackle within the rules!!!
I remember going home from School, across Skye in the early 1970s. Waiting at Kyle Akin was the snow blower, as we crossed from Kyle of Loch Alsh... We followed that blower working flat out all the way from there to Portree and then to Uig for the Ferry.. The snow was higher than the Bus....
We passed a blower that had been trying to keep the route open but had gone off the road , just the back end was showing in the snow, it was otherwise completely buried..
Quote from: The Q on March 01, 2022, 04:45:28 PM
Try playing Shinty, triangular Caman aka shinty stick now they are vicious.. The Stick may be used to block or tackle within the rules!!!
No thanks. I had the dubious opportunity to see a game in Ireland many years ago and it just looked like lawful assault and battery :goggleeyes:
Never tried those sort of games, but in my secondary school days, we occasionally played Murder Ball (despite it being banned by the council for being too dangerous). Split the class in two, place a mat at each end of the gym and a medicine ball in the middle. Each team has to get the ball onto the opposing team's mat ... there are *NO* other rules!
Back on the 'freeze' tack, did anyone else have teams split into 'shirts' and 'skins', the latter being bare from the waist up, regardless of the weather. (Sadly this did not occur at the mixed grammar school).
When we moved to Northampton I fetched up in the boys only grammar school which had an outside swimming pool. Even then, they took pity on us and eventually built walls and a roof over it. However, only the air inside the building was heated and not the pool. After swimming we had to change in the open building (no separate rooms) and half way through getting dressed some wag would find it funny to lob your trunks back into the pool :doh: :cold: :angel:
cold showers, or did they take pity on you ?
:cold:
Quote from: Newportnobby on March 02, 2022, 11:37:38 AM
Back on the 'freeze' tack, did anyone else have teams split into 'shirts' and 'skins', the latter being bare from the waist up, regardless of the weather. (Sadly this did not occur at the mixed grammar school).
When we moved to Northampton I fetched up in the boys only grammar school which had an outside swimming pool. Even then, they took pity on us and eventually built walls and a roof over it. However, only the air inside the building was heated and not the pool. After swimming we had to change in the open building (no separate rooms) and half way through getting dressed some wag would find it funny to lob your trunks back into the pool :doh: :cold: :angel:
Not too different to My secondary Modern in England before we moved North, In my Dads day the boys were actually involved with digging the pool.
no Heating outside, and it was a hundred yards from there to the changing rooms at the sports / assembly hall.
I believe it was referred to as character building :D