This is nothing compared to 1947 (From Darlington and Stockton Times)

This is nothing compared to 1947

11:23am Friday 15th January 2010

• Print
• Email
• Share

AS I AM compiling this week’s diary some two weeks ahead of publication, I can only guess what this week’s weather will produce. Even as I write, however, the prognosis is not good. More snow, ice and freezing winds are forecast.

Our Christmas weather provided everyone with great enjoyment, especially the children, who took full advantage of it. We could claim it was a white Christmas with traditional picturesque scenes, even if it was tempered with problems for many of us.

It was not easy to cope with the slippery, snow-covered roads or treacherous pavements, not to mention the depth of fallen snow on level ground or which had drifted in lofty, exposed places. And, of course, it was very cold with severe frosts and icy winds. In other words, it was the taste of a real British winter.

My favourite snow-time story this year comes from a friend who, in the days before Christmas, was visiting Slovenia in eastern Europe during the course of his work. On the day he left Ljubljana airport to return, he learned that all his modes of transport in England would have to cope with ice and heavy snow perhaps still falling.

Surprisingly, he had no trouble with airports and negotiated a route across London from Heathrow airport despite the conditions. Similarly, his train from King’s Cross to York coped and was on time.

He arrived home in York in time to get washed and changed for a dinner appointment at a neighbour’s house at 8pm. When he arrived, some other guests, also from York, rang to say they would be half-an-hour late due to the snow making walking difficult.

They lived only a few hundred yards from the venue.

While we might think that the snows of December were abnormal, they were not. Such conditions at or near Christmas have materialised over the years and I have many memories of coping with heavy snowfalls – and of preparing for them. As a child living deep within the North York Moors, heavy snow at some stage of winter was expected and I seem to recall that the only time we were almost beaten by snow was during the notorious winter of 1947.

However, villagers coped by preparing for a hard winter long in advance – as early as October or November, coal and log supplies were gathered, provisions were stocked, adequate clothing was found, food and bedding for livestock and pets was prepared, there was always a shovel and wellingtons inside the house to dig one’s way out and paraffin was stored for use in lamps and heaters when the electricity supply was interrupted.

When the lights failed it meant that electric ovens were also rendered useless and, in many cases, the old fireside ovens were brought back into use. They were wonderful for making hot stews and were ideal for drying socks and firewood!

If cars were used, special chains were fastened around the rear wheels to get a grip on the snow and ice, snow tyres were fitted, heavy loads were carried in the boot to lend weight to the vehicle (large sacks of potatoes were very popular) and there was always a shovel on board.

An old carpet or rug could often be utilised to help a stricken car get a grip on ice or snow, but most rural drivers could cope with sudden skids or snowdrifts.

In really heavy snow, all the villagers would help to dig out a route for vehicles and horses – I can recall one trip when men had dug out a blocked lane. The snow they had shifted was stacked higher than the telegraph poles at the road side. So deep was the snow of 1947 that stone walls were completely hidden and sheep remained buried for weeks, often surviving in cosy cocoons.

The snow of that year arrived after Christmas with February 1947 being the coldest February for more than 300 years, and the thawing snows producing some of the worst flooding on record, especially in the south of England. The floods lasted 27 days and did not begin to subside until April 9.

However, even if the 1947 winter was so terrible and memorable, the heaviest snowfall in this region occurred earlier in 1941, when more than 50ins (1.27m) fell in just two days in County Durham.

Even if some of our cold spells have started as early as November and continued until March, there is a long tradition that January is our coldest month. Some have described it as the blackest month of the year with ancient weather lore saying that the coldest day of the year is usually on or around January 13.

This is the feast day of St Hilary of Poitiers, whose feast day falls on January 13 – although in some areas, that feast is celebrated on January 14. As if to confirm that old belief, January 12, 1987 featured extraordinarily low temperatures in this country, said to be without equal since 1740. That was also the year of the great storm that did so much damage, particularly in southern England. It was described as the worst since 1703.

St Hilary is the patron saint of lawyers and slow learners and curiously in those circumstances his feast day also marks the beginning of the new term in Oxford and Dublin universities. It is also close to the beginning of the legal year. For that reason, both are known as Hilary Terms.

MOST of us are aware of the acrobatic skills of grey squirrels when they are in the pursuit of food.

Among of the most entertaining of television sequences, there is one that shows a squirrel overcoming countless obstacles and traps to obtain nuts from a bird feeder. Most of us who live in the countryside can relate similar stories.

I now have first-hand experience of this. For some years, grey squirrels have lived across the road from our house, making the most of some old outbuildings and copses of trees. Seldom have they ventured across the road – although I found one recently that had tried and failed. It had been run over by a passing vehicle because grey squirrels have no road sense.

Now, however, a determined specimen has crossed the road and now seems to be visiting houses where food is placed out for the birds. And that includes us.

We have two seed containers hanging from the branches of our cherry tree and I secured them on long strands of wire especially to thwart any grey squirrels. I reasoned that no squirrel could cling to that narrow wire and so I thought the seeds were safe.

Then a squirrel arrived and sped up the trunk onto a branch from where it dangled head down by clasping the bark with its rear feet. I do not know whether it had earlier tried to shin down the wire for when I noticed it, it hung dangerously close to the seeds and was extending its front paws in an attempt to seize the containers and draw them closer. It failed literally by half an inch.

I felt quite proud of my modest victory but the squirrel then raced up the tree and spent the entire day sleeping lengthways upon a branch. It made more attempts to reach the seeds but had to content itself by eating fallen seeds from the ground.

Then it turned its attention to a container of peanuts hanging from a bracket on the house wall. And this time it succeeded. It climbed on to a stone post bearing a lamp and I saw it leap across a wide gap to clasp the nut container with all four feet.

And then it proceeded to attack the nuts – I was worried it might cut the wires with its sharp teeth, but so far this has not happened. Now it is a regular visitor – and defies all attempts to shoo it away. If I chase it off, it returns within seconds but I have noticed that it concentrates upon one small part of the container.

This morning, therefore, I smothered the area of its operations with some chilli powder.

I now await the outcome.

• Print
• Email
• Share