There was a lot of snow in Ushaw Moor during the period January to March 1947 and Brian M [Noodles] made reference to it in an earlier article. The Moor also suffered a severe gale in early February 1948 with 95 miles per hour winds recorded in Durham city. No doubt Sleetburn got it as well!
There was heavy snow for much of early March 1958. Seven years and a bit later there was again tons of it [November 65].
March 79 brought a snowstorm and 1985 brought lots of snow during the Christmas festive period.
Were you born during any of those periods? Or married? Or on holiday elsewhere?
Most of the information was derived from family records with a bit from the Ferryhill weather records.
WB
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hello Wilf,
ReplyDeleteOne memory sticks out in my mind during the winter of 1947. I awoke one morning to find that the snow had come down thick and fast during the night. If one can visualise the external features of No. 38 Victoria Court with what we called the veranda on the front of the house, the sunken yard and then the front wall which was more or less a brick box containing soil. The snow had drifted during the blizzard and swept up in a perfect slope from the footpath and up to the level of the front bedroom windows. People dug open tunnels through the snow to get out of the house and followed the tunnels down Whitehouse Lane or wherever one had to go. It was bloody cold and the houses were only a month old when the snow started and the water flowed out of the fresh plaster on the walls as the house dried out.
We were lucky living in the Durham Coalfield as we never went short of coal. No carpets only clippie mats, freezing lino and no central heating. it was battle to get nearest the fire and tt was so cold that we slept with clippie mats on the beds to keep warm and with hot water bottles or hot bricks wrapped in a piece of old blanket. But we survived and live to tell the tale. Happy days.
PS. Radio Luxembourg was great to listen to on those dark freezing winter nights.
Brian Mc.
Hi Brian, It was a lovely response to my post. Your vivid writing and long term memory excels way beyond that of most people. Wilf
ReplyDeleteI was born in 1983 so would have only been 2 in 1985 when Wilf mentions the snow, but there was indeed at least one or two really heavy snowfalls. We used to live in Arthur Street (no.7) and i remember opening the back door and our yard being 6ft high of snow!
ReplyDeleteVery exciting as a kid (still now even to be honest!)
A bad winter was the winter of 1962/63. Looked bloody cold from my posting with the British Army on the Equator just outside of Nairobi in Kenya. The newspaper photos showed it was a real bad winter.
ReplyDelete