The Big Freeze

[GAD]

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.

[guest311]

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 

[martyn]

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

[Newportnobby]

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 )
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

[Malc]

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

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.

[guest311]

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

[Newportnobby]

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
And yes, we had to play such sports come snow, rain, hail, wind, sun etc in leaky old plimsolls

[The Q]

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..

[Newportnobby]

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

[stevewalker]

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!

[Newportnobby]

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

[guest311]

cold showers, or did they take pity on you ?

[The Q]

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

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.

[guest311]

I believe it was referred to as character building