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[crumbly65]

That winter of 1963 is one of the strongest memories of my 77 years on this planet.

Dad, Mum and I were driving down Epping High Street in Essex, after an evening playing cribbage and drinking at my Aunt's.  We were in Dad's brand-new maroon and grey Ford Classic 1340cc 4 door, very smart.

It was Boxing Night, and as we drove along the High Street at around 11.30ish, it started to snow.  the snow fell heavily all the way home, some 6 or 7 miles, with Dad getting increasingly nervous.

When I got up to go to work, the snow was really thick, and it was freezing cold.  I was working at a furniture factory, delivering Hi-Fi cabinets to HMV in Cambridge some 35 miles away, and I recall how high the snow was piled up either side of the road everywhere.  And how the inside of the old double-decker works bus was frosted over - even the seats, day after day.........  And that's the way it was until March 1963.

Mum slipped in the icy conditions that winter, and broke her leg, so couldn't do much around the house.  It was when I first learned to cook and take care of myself. 

It was so very harsh, that winter.

[Exile]

some of these read how you first started an addiction to land rovers.

Kind of ^.

We ran a Plant Hire Company back then, and here in NW Essex the snow piled up high in the wind.

Our Firm was contracted to clear the roads with a fleet of Whitlock diggers.

(I have his old cine films of the diggers - which were built up the road from us in Great Yeldham - working in piles of snow).

My father had a helluva job to get the drivers out each day to where the diggers had been left overnight, such was the snow.

So he got a local farmer to drive him around in the farmer's Series One diesel.

Despite being loaded with shovels and men, some days the Land Rover just could not get through to the diggers at all.


In December 1968, I bought that same Series One diesel, with the £50 I'd earnt from operating a digger on a building site, during my school holidays.


53 years later I still have the Series One that my father and the farmer battled through the '63 snowdrifts in.

[LN11AAB498A]

"I wish I`d joined the RAC now"

[Genem]

^^^^^ Wow, what an incredible picture !   Storey Arms ?  - brings back memories of some dismal days training at Sennybridge and on the Brecon Beacons.

[Calum]

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.....

That photo was only taken down the road from my house (well maybe 2 miles but the same elevation). Looks like an A35?

52 Keighley Rd
https://maps.app.goo.gl/RvX3djN3DCvze7w3A

[Wittsend]

I thought so, or an A30 or an Austin Devon with that shape of radiator grille.

 

[Alan Drover]

I reckon from the position of the headlights in relation to the painted grill it's an A35.

[w3526602]

Hi,

Not Barbara, so it must have been the girlfriend before, which makes it 1963.

Motor Transport Section Xmas "bash" at RAF Barnham (Thetford). I drove down to Croydon in my 1932 Austin 7, hired a Mini, and returned to camp, with my then girlfriend, attended the Xmas party, (after she had changed in a mate's married quarters) and returned to Croydon that night.

I won't claim that I drove sensibly, but the roads were absolutely empty of traffic. The falling snow was just a white blur, but there were no "underpants" moments.

Back to camp on Sunday night/ Monday morning, in the Austin 7. 

End of March 1965, married Barbara in Swansea, left the reception, and headed for RAF Faldingworth (Lincoln) to book her into the RAF ASAP, so she could fly to Malaya with me. Memory says we saw lambs gambolling in the snow, but I have no memory of anything serious. After that, our honeymoon, was a series of unbooked "bed and brekkies".

Efforts were in vain, so I flew East without her. She followed several weeks later .... I knew when the arrived in Singapore, but was told she would not arrive on Penang till the following day. So I nipped over to the Island, to find a bungalow to rent. I returned to camp, late evening, to be told that my wife had arrived, and was being cared for by the Squadron Warrant Officer. We spent that first night in his married quarters.

The RAF had found her a seat on a Vickers Viking, that was heading our way. The Viking was nick-named The Pig, and had two propellors. I don't think Barbara was impressed to see "things" moving, through the holes in the floor.

602

OT ... our return to UK in July 1967 was in a Fokker Friendship down to Singapore, followed by 26 hours in a turbo-fan Bristol Britannia "troop-ship" (extra row of seats, so narrow aisle) accompanied by a six-month foetus. She still says I never take her anywhere.

[martinrh]

Interesting thread, I wasn’t born but there was a bit of snow in the early 1970s I remember. And this was in Dorset so blocked roads were unusual. I went with dad to get milk for the neigbours on a sledge.
A quick look on YouTube shows lots of footage of 63. This one has a few series 2’s, and starts with one towing a coach, perhaps it should be on the towing capacity thread?
http://Https://youtu.be/gZHjildZuU

[Simon K.]

I don't remember 63 as I was still a baby, but my Aunt, who lived in Ottawa, Canada was over in England that winter to help my mother, and I later remember her reminiscing that the winter in England then was actually worse than the Canadian ones she was used to.

I think there was a bad winter about 1970 as I remember my dad digging out our long driveway with a borrowed tracked crawler, then bumbling about in his series 1.

Bad winters that I can remember were 1981, when the snow was everywhere, I had an old mini van with knobbly tyres on that just seemed to tackle anything.

The other one was about 1986 when the snow was so deep in the country road by our house that the local farmer couldn't even get his huge County tractor down the road, and eventually a JCB managed to carve a single track lane so we could get out for supplies. Had no electric for 10 days that winter, slept in the sitting room by the log fire with parents and dogs/cats those nights.

Simon.

[w3526602]

I had an old mini van with knobbly tyres on that just seemed to tackle anything.

Hi Simon,

I think it was Firestone who made TOWN & COUNTRY and promised to pay the recovery cost for anybody who got stuck in mud or snow.

I fitted a pair (10"dia) T&Cs on the front wheels of my 1959 Minivan, and never failed to "get through".

Problem ... T&C were all cross-ply, so if the driven wheels were on the rear axle, you must NOT use radials on the front wheels. I do not not what options are available for modern FWD hatch-backs.  Where do Winter tyres and/or snow-chains fit into the legal equation?

602

[autorover1]

I have seen one or two Land Rovers with radials front, cross plys rear , as you say illegal. One was on a YouTube video, having a new valid Mot ! !  . I guess youngsters at testing stations may not be  aware, or is it even a testable item now.

[Genem]

You can use snow chains in the UK where the snow/ice protects the road surface, you can't use them when it doesn't. Quite who makes that decision or who was last charged for breaking the rules, who knows. I've a full set of four and have used them when the snow/ice got to the point I could not move the hay-trailer. A right faff to fit but once on, there is little going to stop you !

Winter tyres are made with a different compound I suspect but highly likely they are going to be Radials.  If you have a set of T&C left then they are Ancient and I'd not suggest using them on the highway.

[Wittsend]

In some countries "winter tyres" are mandatory.
When the bad weather comes drivers just swap over their set of winter tyres. In some places studded tyres can be used.

These days no one would be *&%^$ around with 2 ancient dubious tyres trying to save a few quid 

I last saw snow chains in use on a PO van going up Woodhouse Lane in Leeds, 1979.

 

[Genem]

....all a bit hilarious, given Sky News announcing as "Good News !" that New Years Day was the warmest on record, ever.