Martin thats a great video yes i remember the 1963 winter as a very young boy still had to walk to school in the deep snow with my shorts on .

Loads of locos in the video plus some great shots of the Blue Pullman

cheers Brian

Me too, Brian, and I never missed a day. My mother used to have the attendance certificate to prove it. What a fool I must have been

Mike

Fantastic Martin - good filming, excellent editing and wow, that sound-track !! :thumbs  I really enjoyed it and well done for finding / posting it. ;-)

We were snowed up for 5 days that year.   We had to walk to the village a mile away.  The council used an old ex-army Scammell 6X6 as a snow plough but it was stuck in huge snowdrifts for over a week !!!

As it froze hard (in Yorkshire) before the snow came, we were 11 weeks without mains water.  The water board (as it was then) delivered water in a bowser to our little hamlet every 3 days once the road was open.  A bit like the stand-pipes of wartime Britain with us all filling our buckets etc.  I can only remember 2 really tough winters - '58/59 and '63 although, whilst I was only a wee thing, apparently '47 was the worst in "living" memory.

There's also another BTF film of similar snowfalls.  It's about the rescue of the Ivatt Class 2 which was stuck on Blea Moor up beyone Bowes.  That loco is (I'm pretty sure) the one that has been restored by the Darlington Railway Preservation Society.

Actually when you think about it kids today are real woosys i cant remember ever getting the day off because its snowing i had to walk every day to school with my shorts on whatever the weather.

cheers Brian

 

 Blame it on the "Health & Safety" people Brian. Back then if you fell over on the ice and broke your leg, your dad would probably tell you how stupid you were for not looking where you were going. Now they would sue God for allowing the ice to form on the path :hmm

[user=98]Kevr[/user] wrote:

 

 Blame it on the "Health & Safety" people Brian. Back then if you fell over on the ice and broke your leg, your dad would probably tell you how stupid you were for not looking where you were going. Now they would sue God for allowing the ice to form on the path :hmm

Too right !!!!

A good video there Martin.

Brings back a few memories! My school gates were at the top of a short but steep slope; I had difficulty getting to them one day because of the ice on the slope.

Hi Martin

That's the film - "Bleath Gill" not Blea Hill but at least it was up on Stainmoor :oops::oops:  A really good film showing some pretty grim weather conditions.  It's comparing those winters with today that you realise there's maybe some truth in this "Global Warming" idea !!!  We had sledges out and skated on the ponds every year.

Now it's strange that I don't remember the winter of '55 - we lived in either Catterick or Leeds at the tmie - don't know which because we moved from the former to the latter around that time.    The '58 one sticks more because that was the year we moved  from a "city" to the countryside near York and life really changed.  There was no electricity in the house for the first 4 years we were there - just calor gas and oil lamps !!     Our first term at our new school in York was fun during the winter.   We travelled on a Bedford Duple "Luxury" 29 seater coach the 10 miles into York each day.  When the bus hit a snowdrift, the driver shouted  "OK you lads, out and push".  Other than those particularly bad 5 days when the bus couldn't even get to us, never mind York, I don't ever remember not getting through.  When we neared York, other traffic often asked which way we'd come.  When the driver said "Along the A 166 - it was blocked before we arrived but you can get through now ", he usually got a strange "how did you do that with a Bedford Duple ?" sort of look.

Certainly hard days but they were great fun (for youngsters) and we never had either leaves on the line or the wrong kind of snow !!!

I have all the BTF DVDs and they are just excellent.  That snow drift one that you refer to has one of the most memorable scenes in.  About 50 men in flat caps are sitting on the fence beside the railway eating their lunch after having been busy digging snow and they are waiting for the snow plough to make the charge.

Seconds later the snow plough approaches being pushed by some kettle at about 60 mph and hits the snow drift, sending tons of snow flying into the air any burying all the men eating their lunch!  Not a hard hat or high visibility vest in sight, and I bet every one of those men worked for most of the week clearing snow with no breaks, rest periods, minimum time between shifts etc.

They don't make them like they used to!

[user=200]Christrerise[/user] wrote:

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They don't make them like they used to!

Maybe not Chris but some of us who were made then are still alive and kicking :roll::roll:

Perhaps we should have a "down memory lane " topic for us old uns to reminisce on the days when we could spell.

Funny that, I find I'm misspelling words now that have never caused me a problem. I'm using the spell checker more and more, so I guess it must be an age thing :exclam:exclam Or maybe as I get older I've less patience to be accurate :question

BTW, the forum spell checker is very good if anyone has need of such a device. Simply write your post, click on the ABC (top right) and you'll get a complete preview with the wrong words highlighted. Click on the wrong words and you get a list of suggested changes.   Luvverly Jubbly :exclam:exclam

[user=3]Gwent Rail[/user] wrote:

Funny that, I find I'm misspelling words now that have never caused me a problem. I'm using the spell checker more and more, so I guess it must be an age thing :exclam:exclam Or maybe as I get older I've less patience to be accurate :question

I too am finding that I mis-spell words,  fingers working faster then the grey cells.

Definitely not age, Jeff, just too much to do & not enough time to do it , is my story:thumbs

Now back to the thread, while I never had snow to contend with, as a child, I had  nearly 2 miles to walk to school in all sorts of weather; hot, cold, wet or windy or a mixture of all.   As kids, we never complained - if we did, we got no pity as everyone was in the same boat.   Now I find my grand children mutter if they have to walk 1 mile in beautiful weather. Anything over 50 yards is too much trouble for them:exclam