Looking Back Sixty Years: The Winter Freeze, 1963
WE KEPT OPEN! Looking back sixty years, I am astonished to recall that my school never closed while Britain shivered and slithered through nine continuous weeks of sub-zero temperatures in 1963 [writes Jerry Dowlen]
WE KEPT OPEN! Looking back sixty years, I am astonished to recall that my school never closed while Britain shivered and slithered through nine continuous weeks of sub-zero temperatures in 1963 [writes Jerry Dowlen]
Starting from Boxing Day 1962 when the snow reached Kent it was an endurance test of snow-blocked roads, cancelled trains, fuel shortages, power cuts, food supply disruption and frozen milk bottles on the doorstep. ‘Gracious me,’ I ponder. ‘Did my Dad really go to the office and back (Orpington to London commuter train) every day during all that? And did I really go to school and back every day (on foot and by two buses) every day, too?’
The Spring 1963 issue of my Chislehurst & Sidcup Grammar School magazine said: ‘THE COLD WEATHER. The snow was cleared before the beginning of Term and, generally speaking, the School was warm. And we kept open! Much of this was due to the sterling efforts of the caretaking staff. Particularly cold rooms were improved by convector heaters and some much needed additional permanent radiators were installed.’
For me and my friends based in Orpington or Petts Wood it must have been a Herculean feat of boldness and stamina to get to Hurst Road, Sidcup and back while being buffeted by the hazards of snow, blizzards, icy pavements and disrupted public transport services? We didn’t even get a week’s respite during half term because the break was only for two days. But I can recall little if any reluctance or fear of venturing out to school in the freezing conditions. If anything, we relished the challenge and we sought every opportunity to enjoy the fun. There was even a snowball fight with the teachers one lunchtime! Our parents, I have no doubt, imbued us with the ‘keep calm and carry on’ doctrine that they themselves had nobly exemplified two decades earlier during the war.
The Spring 1963 issue of my Chislehurst & Sidcup Grammar School magazine said: ‘THE COLD WEATHER. The snow was cleared before the beginning of Term and, generally speaking, the School was warm. And we kept open! Much of this was due to the sterling efforts of the caretaking staff. Particularly cold rooms were improved by convector heaters and some much needed additional permanent radiators were installed.’
For me and my friends based in Orpington or Petts Wood it must have been a Herculean feat of boldness and stamina to get to Hurst Road, Sidcup and back while being buffeted by the hazards of snow, blizzards, icy pavements and disrupted public transport services? We didn’t even get a week’s respite during half term because the break was only for two days. But I can recall little if any reluctance or fear of venturing out to school in the freezing conditions. If anything, we relished the challenge and we sought every opportunity to enjoy the fun. There was even a snowball fight with the teachers one lunchtime! Our parents, I have no doubt, imbued us with the ‘keep calm and carry on’ doctrine that they themselves had nobly exemplified two decades earlier during the war.
A first and very obvious rejoinder to this is to ask what would have happened if the Big Freeze had happened in modern time instead of sixty years ago in 1962/63? How would the ‘snowflake’ generation have coped? What safety instructions would have been sent to employees by the Human Resources department of their workplace? How would local councils, hospitals, railways and buses have guarded against lawsuits from pedestrians, passengers, visitors etc taking a tumble on icy surfaces or suffering other outrages?
I feel sure that the Health & Safety brigade of today would have fifty fits if they had been informed of an incident that was reported by one of the Chis & Sid pupils in The Chronicle school magazine of 1963.
G. Pettipher of 4B recounted that a tipper truck came up the rough track past the Golf Club to arrive in the school field where the sewage men had been working. (Sewage!). The snow lay deep on the track and when trying to return afterwards the lorry stuck fast. The men asked for help and some boys from the school ran up and started to push it from behind. With little progress made, the boys then were asked to climb up into the tipper in the hope that the extra weight would make the vehicle move. Shouts went out for more boys to run across and help. When the truck was full, the driver started the engine and the lorry began to ‘wobble merrily’ back towards the Golf Club. ‘Just past the junction the driver stopped the truck and all the boys tumbled out, about forty or fifty in all, and walked back to the school.’
From my school friend Roger Harris: ‘The only thing I remember about the freeze in 1963 (and other winters) is that the boys created ice slides on the school field. It was quite a dangerous pursuit and I'm sure it would be banned these days.’
That comports with my recollection that we boys were never told that we mustn’t throw snowballs at each other or that we mustn’t play ball games during the lunch break. The biggest health hazard, as I now see it, very likely was the fug inside the classroom after the lunch break when boys draped their sopping wet gloves over the radiators to try and dry them off. I have a hunch also that I always brought a spare set of socks in my satchel so that I could exchange my wet ones after lunch hour football: the notion that we wouldn’t, as normal, play football had never remotely crossed our minds despite the unpleasant icy slush and pools of water on the grass. Other pupils were more constructive in their choice of winter freeze recreation: a group of the younger pupils proudly built an igloo in the school grounds.
In those days the mid-morning half-bottle of milk was still standard issue for schoolchildren. This form of daily nourishment gained a new popularity during the winter term of 1963. If the bottles had been left outdoors for too long the milk froze and expanded so that the cream rose two inches or more out of the bottle neck, resembling a tall grey cork.
If you would like to wallow in full nostalgia of the 1962-63 winter there is a new book Frostquake by Juliet Nicolson (Vintage / Penguin, 2021). Sifting through the many anecdotes of towns, villages, people and professions struggling to survive the snow I am left with an impression that we in suburban Bromley and Bexley were comparatively blessed. We weren’t cut off and isolated by huge heavy snowdrifts and we were not reliant on one single form or route of transport.
An interesting irony is that steam locomotives on the railway proved to be a lifesaver for many parts of Britain. The new-fangled diesel engines conked out in the extreme cold and so the steam engines cast aside for the scrapheap were hurriedly returned into service. Luckily, too, Doctor Beeching had not yet decreed the closure of 55 per cent of Britain’s railway stations located on remote and loss-making routes. Let me again cite Roger Harris: ‘Yes, steam trains used to work very well in bad weather, and it's still happening in more modern times. In 2009, there was snow in Kent and many passengers got stranded. Fortunately the newly-built steam locomotive ‘Tornado’ was hauling a special excursion round Kent at the time and rescued the passengers.’
I feel sure that the Health & Safety brigade of today would have fifty fits if they had been informed of an incident that was reported by one of the Chis & Sid pupils in The Chronicle school magazine of 1963.
G. Pettipher of 4B recounted that a tipper truck came up the rough track past the Golf Club to arrive in the school field where the sewage men had been working. (Sewage!). The snow lay deep on the track and when trying to return afterwards the lorry stuck fast. The men asked for help and some boys from the school ran up and started to push it from behind. With little progress made, the boys then were asked to climb up into the tipper in the hope that the extra weight would make the vehicle move. Shouts went out for more boys to run across and help. When the truck was full, the driver started the engine and the lorry began to ‘wobble merrily’ back towards the Golf Club. ‘Just past the junction the driver stopped the truck and all the boys tumbled out, about forty or fifty in all, and walked back to the school.’
From my school friend Roger Harris: ‘The only thing I remember about the freeze in 1963 (and other winters) is that the boys created ice slides on the school field. It was quite a dangerous pursuit and I'm sure it would be banned these days.’
That comports with my recollection that we boys were never told that we mustn’t throw snowballs at each other or that we mustn’t play ball games during the lunch break. The biggest health hazard, as I now see it, very likely was the fug inside the classroom after the lunch break when boys draped their sopping wet gloves over the radiators to try and dry them off. I have a hunch also that I always brought a spare set of socks in my satchel so that I could exchange my wet ones after lunch hour football: the notion that we wouldn’t, as normal, play football had never remotely crossed our minds despite the unpleasant icy slush and pools of water on the grass. Other pupils were more constructive in their choice of winter freeze recreation: a group of the younger pupils proudly built an igloo in the school grounds.
In those days the mid-morning half-bottle of milk was still standard issue for schoolchildren. This form of daily nourishment gained a new popularity during the winter term of 1963. If the bottles had been left outdoors for too long the milk froze and expanded so that the cream rose two inches or more out of the bottle neck, resembling a tall grey cork.
If you would like to wallow in full nostalgia of the 1962-63 winter there is a new book Frostquake by Juliet Nicolson (Vintage / Penguin, 2021). Sifting through the many anecdotes of towns, villages, people and professions struggling to survive the snow I am left with an impression that we in suburban Bromley and Bexley were comparatively blessed. We weren’t cut off and isolated by huge heavy snowdrifts and we were not reliant on one single form or route of transport.
An interesting irony is that steam locomotives on the railway proved to be a lifesaver for many parts of Britain. The new-fangled diesel engines conked out in the extreme cold and so the steam engines cast aside for the scrapheap were hurriedly returned into service. Luckily, too, Doctor Beeching had not yet decreed the closure of 55 per cent of Britain’s railway stations located on remote and loss-making routes. Let me again cite Roger Harris: ‘Yes, steam trains used to work very well in bad weather, and it's still happening in more modern times. In 2009, there was snow in Kent and many passengers got stranded. Fortunately the newly-built steam locomotive ‘Tornado’ was hauling a special excursion round Kent at the time and rescued the passengers.’
Image: The film West 11 was shot in London in early 1963 starring Alfred Lynch and Diana Dors. Michael Winner was the director. The pavements and kerbsides were piled up with black gritty snow and slush that refused to melt.
The author Juliet Nicolson hails from the Sackville-West family and her book contains many anecdotes of her childhood at Sissinghurst, Kent where the house was so uncomfortably cold and inaccessible that her family mostly used their London home during the freeze. Her book offers a wide social perspective upon the 1962 and 1963 period also encompassing international and domestic politics (the Cuban missile crisis; Profumo; Harold Wilson) as well as popular music and fashion (the Beatles, Mary Quant, Jean Shrimpton).
The author Juliet Nicolson hails from the Sackville-West family and her book contains many anecdotes of her childhood at Sissinghurst, Kent where the house was so uncomfortably cold and inaccessible that her family mostly used their London home during the freeze. Her book offers a wide social perspective upon the 1962 and 1963 period also encompassing international and domestic politics (the Cuban missile crisis; Profumo; Harold Wilson) as well as popular music and fashion (the Beatles, Mary Quant, Jean Shrimpton).