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[Alan Drover]

Who remembers it? Deep snow  and where I was  in Hampshire the only 4wd vehicles were farm Land Rovers (my uncle's Series 2/2A being one of about 3 in the village) yet we all managed to get about in our 2wd cars.
Imagine the chaos 10 feet of snow would cause today.  I doubt if so called 4wd stuff today could have coped with the conditions.

[TimV]

Are you referring to 1963 Vic?

Didn't have snow drifts that deep here in the West Country, but I do remember having to go to school along paths where you couldn't see the road behind the banked up snow.

[diffwhine]

Regrettably no... 59 years ago I was even less thought about than I am now...

Certainly was a famous winter though. I think I learned about it in some history book... 

Happy New Year!

[w3526602]

Hi,

In the early 1960s, probably including 1963, I was driving a 1932 Austin 7 from RAF Barnham (now part of RAF Honington), near Thetford, to South Croydon, on Friday evenings, and back again on the wee hours of Monday mornings.

In early December 1967, the South Coast was cut of for three days, by snow. Barbara was in the Maternity Ward of Eastbourne General, while I had just moved into a flat in West Croydon, waiting for Barbara to join me. I managed to visit every evening, with special dispensation to arrive after visiting hours. Luckily the snow cleared before Barbara was discharged. My car was a Singer Gazelle convertible.

Sometime in the mid-1980s, there was deep snow in South Wales. At that time I had an S1 LWB pick-up, running on 600x16 tyres liberated from a Humber Pullman Limosine. It would go most places in 2WD. Parking involved plunging into the big piles of snow at the side of the road, and engaging 4WD, to reverse out.

602

[Alan Drover]

Are you referring to 1963 Vic?

Didn't have snow drifts that deep here in the West Country, but I do remember having to go to school along paths where you couldn't see the road behind the banked up snow.

It started snowing Boxing Day evening 1962. I had to go out in it. The snow stayed until the the middle of March 1963..

[Noddy]

1979 Feb 3' drifts on the road to Boston detour via A52 made it to the maternity unit time for a cup of tea then straight into the delivery room. Driving a Mk1 Escort estate.
Used to be first sign of snow and in the boot went rope, shovel and weight tractor wheel weight at 20st/125kg each or bag of corn 12st/75kg my preference was six bags of ballast can be shovelled under the wheels for extra grip.

Alec 

[Wittsend]

We still have the Triang sledge I got as a Christmas present '62.

I have a souvenir booklet about the '62/'63 winter and here's the best motoring pic from it.....

[genocache]

We had about 1/2" in 1976, right down to the beach! It was quite a sight to see the all white beach with no footprints on my way to work that morning in my 88. The other  I remember was 1956, we made about a 8" tall  by scraping up the front yard. Yes, 8 inches and it melted by afternoon, I was 5.

Best was in 73 with my 64 88, the    was deeper in the mountains and I took my cousins up for a romp in the  .
In my blog;  https://poppageno.blogspot.com/2018/07/my-1st-land-rover-movie.html   

[nathanglasgow]

My old man reckoned the winter of '46/47 was the worst. He lived in Matlock, Derbyshire at the time having left Manchester during the war.

[Alan Drover]

My old man reckoned the winter of '46/47 was the worst. He lived in Matlock, Derbyshire at the time having left Manchester during the war.

I was alive (just) then but don't remember it.

[LN11AAB498A]

Who remembers it? Deep snow  and where I was  in Hampshire the only 4wd vehicles were farm Land Rovers (my uncle's Series 2/2A being one of about 3 in the village) yet we all managed to get about in our 2wd cars.
Imagine the chaos 10 feet of snow would cause today.  I doubt if so called 4wd stuff today could have coped with the conditions.

I was then living in the Oxfordshire countryside and have fond childhood memories of the 1963 snow. Sadly    the school coach couldn't get to us. Making a sledge from a sheet of corrugated metal and then careering down a farmers steep field. Out for most of the day having great fun and only going home when we got hungry.

There was a documentary about it and I've since read about it to. ahh, those were the days when we had proper seasons.

This is an account of it written by the Met Office.

"The winter of 1963 - the coldest for more than 200 years
With temperatures so cold the sea froze in places, 1963 is one of the coldest winters on record. Bringing blizzards, snow drifts, blocks of ice, and temperatures lower than -20 °C, it was colder than the winter of 1947, and the coldest since 1740.

It began abruptly just before Christmas in 1962. The weeks before had been changeable and stormy, but then on 22 December a high pressure system moved to the north-east of the British Isles, dragging bitterly cold winds across the country. This situation was to last much of the winter.

A belt of rain over northern Scotland on 24 December turned to snow as it moved south, giving Glasgow its first white Christmas since 1938. The snow-belt reached southern England on Boxing Day and parked over the country, bringing a snowfall of up to 30 cm.

A blizzard followed on 29 and 30 December across Wales and south-west England, causing snowdrifts up to 6 m deep. Roads and railways were blocked, telephone lines brought down, and some villages were left cut off for several days. The snow was so deep farmers couldn't get to their livestock, and many animals starved to death.

This snow set the scene for the next two months, as much of England remained covered every day until early March 1963. While snow fell, and settled there was still plenty of sunshine. The weak winter sun did not warm things up, however, as the lack of cloud cover allowed temperatures to plunge. In Braemar in Scotland, the temperature got down to -22.2 °C on 18 January. Mean maximum temperatures in January were below 0 °C in several places in southern England and Wales, more than 5 °C below average. Mean minimum temperatures were well below freezing. Temperatures weren't much higher for most of February.

The long bitterly cold spell caused lakes and rivers to freeze, even sea water in some of England's harbours turned to ice. Ice patches formed at sea and on beaches. Winter didn't fully relax its grip until 4 March, when a mild south-westerly flow of air reached the British Isles. By 6 March, there was no frost anywhere in the British Isles and the temperature in London reached 17 °C - the highest since October 1962.

Finally, the coldest winter for more than 200 years in England and Wales had ended. With the thaw came flooding, but nothing like the scale of the 1947 floods. Soon after the winter had ended, life returned to normal".

[genocache]

Facinating, Did Europe also experience this?

[Grandadrob]

I remember it very well. 13 years old, in London with a job helping a milkman. It was a very hilly part of Hampstead. The three wheeled electric milk float would wheel spin its battery flat. The milk would freeze in the bottles and rise out of the top with the cap still on it. Triangular half pints frozen solid could be thrown at door steps. I thought it was great fun..   happy days.

[Alan Drover]

I can't remember but would assume so for northern parts of mainland  Europe probably. I can remembering the trains running so I still got to school and weekends were spent tree felling for firewood to keep us warm. (the effort involved in felling and sawing the logs kept us warm until we stopped) and then standing knee deep in silage feeding cattle. The silage kept my feet warm.

[Alan Drover]

I remember too incurring the wrath of my father by sleeping with my bedroom window wide open and the water in  the pipes running along the skirting board under the window froze.