What were the two worst winters on record? Some might say Mike and Bernie, but the more serious answer is 1947 and 1962/63 when it froze continuously from Xmas to March.

Sixty years ago the UK was in the grip of a brutal winter. Anyone who, like me, is old enough to have lived through the "big freeze" of winter 1962/63 will certainly remember it. Either it was the worst winter in living memory or the last truly great winter of our time depending on whether you were the right age to enjoy it or endure it.

“In winter 1963, it felt like the world would freeze” - lyrics from ‘Life in a Northern Town’ 1963, written during the Big Freeze, by Dream Academy.

Click here for a Met office account of the winters of 1947 & 1963

To the bewilderment of our continental neighbours, even a light fall of snow in England tends to bring the country to a standstill. With delays and cancellations on the railways, chaos on the roads, power cuts and rural communities being cut -off, simply travelling to and from work in the cold and dark becomes a miserable experience for the working population.

"The winter of 1962/63 was a real shocker. Snow & ice lasted for months. I travelled to and from work on a motorbike and got frozen despite protective clothing. The alternative was to freeze at bus stops. The pain on the bike was worse but didn't last as long. The additional "bonus" of the cold weather was sulphurous fog caused by the low temperatures plus all the extra coal being burnt. Not many places were centrally heated then. Traffic followed me in the fog in the belief that my vision was better than theirs. What they didn't know was that my glasses had frozen over, so I took 'em off. My vision was marginally better without them".

Today some headteachers opt for school closure at the first sign of a snowflake. It wasn't the case back in the 1960s. During the Big Freeze it was common for children to walk or sledge to school. Today, there is far more reliance on the car.

"Despite the chaos on the roads, it is my recollection the school never closed and the school buses continued running. I think we may have been allowed to leave school early a couple of times on account of heavy snowfall or fog. I now suspect that this was more for the benefit of the teachers who drove in from leafy villages on the outskirts of Leeds, such as Little Joe, commuting in his Rover from Bardsey (or East Keswick)."

Even a little snow on the roads has the potential to make them treacherous to drivers. I remember our chemistry teacher, who drove to school in a Triumph Vitesse, uncharacteristically complaining to the class one morning about the idiots who didn't know how to drive in these icy conditions, by using a higher gear than normal, steering into a skid, and gentle dabbing of the brakes to stop. (Driving tips I remembered and used in later life).
On one occasion, I remember there was snow and ice on the road so that coming down Kirkstall Hill on a bus was a nerve-wracking experience, especially from the front seats on the top deck, wondering whether the bus would manage to pull up at the junction at the bottom of the hill or not.
I mentioned this on a website many years later and a retired LCT driver replied:

"Front seats on the top deck"?? - I can promise you it was a lot MORE nerve-wracking from the front seat on the bottom deck - i.e., in the driver's cab!! - If you think it's pretty hairy do what I do, shut your eyes and pray"

Another hill which looked horrendous in the snow, and caught car drivers out, was Hilltop at Whingate. This was on my school run but I never remember having to walk because the bus service was cancelled due to bad weather - even in the long snowy winter of 1963. I did see a bus skid sideways on this hill but stopped skidding when the rear wheels hit the kerb. Hats off to the LCT bus drivers, for driving a half-cab bus in conditions like this. How did they keep it from going sideways with only rear-wheel drive, and presumably on ordinary tyres? Were LCT drivers trained on a skid pan?

"Well in short, we didn't stop them sliding - but by keeping in low gears and only breathing on the brakes, when necessary, we hoped to "aim" the bus towards a safe gap. I think that skid pans were London Transport speciality lesser mortals were left to "play it by ear" or whatever. Cockshott Lane was another brute, and in extremely bad times was abandoned in favour of the easier Armley Ridge Road - that's why you still see a group of disgruntled frozen folks at the top of Cockshott Lane waiting for the bus"

That never-ending winter may have been a miserable experience for the working population but if you are a teenage schoolboy, as I was in 1963, you see things differently. The snowfall transformed the familiar drab environment of West Leeds suburbs into a sparkling winter wonderland with all the ugly imperfections wiped out and presented lots of opportunity for fun and games. For our parents, it was "no fun" at all but for us it was "snow fun"!

SNOW FUN

Building igloos and snow forts.
I remember the fun we had in the snow, building great forts and igloos, stocking them with pre-made snowballs and inviting passers-by to attack us. We developed a great way of building by casting snow blocks out of cardboard cartons. That way we could build a snow fortress in no time.

One evening that winter I was walking home from school near Bramley Town End when I saw an LCT bus driving towards me. The snow was perfect for making snowballs and I couldn't resist the moving target. I hurled a newly formed snowball at the front of the bus hitting the top deck front windows. My marksmanship was witnessed by a policeman, walking towards me, who took my name in his notebook and warned me against "discharging a missile". I thought this was a funny choice of words because it was only a few months after the Cuban missile crisis. I have not discharged any missiles since -Honest!