The big freeze

[martymont]

Was a kid then, still remember school was open in fact it seemed nothing was shut down (probably was but don't remember) not been a winter like it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAQ3Wg-I6gw although 81 was cold but not as bad as 63 was not born when 48 hit.

[ralph]

For some reason, this particularly cold winter seems to have faded from my memory, the more surprising as I was 19 and an apprentice plumber at the time and I'm sure a cold snap like that must have produced plenty of work. Two things I do remember that are likely to have been connected with this year: Firstly, being called out to a house in Cleadon Village, where the owner was abroad and a pipe in the loft had burst and was flooding the house. A neighbour had called us out, and it was already dark when I arrived. The only stop-tap to which I could gain access was in the garden and had been buried under a rockery, which in turn was buried under snow.

When eventually I dug it out, the top of the valve was missing and I still could not turn the water off. The memory of the time I spent lying in snow and mud trying to dig out that valve was an important factor in me changing my job once I had completed my apprenticeship.

The second memory is of a thaw, and standing in River Drive at South Shields and watching great slabs of pack-ice floating down the river, something I have only ever seen before when on the St Lawrence River in Canada, so it must have been very cold indeed.

[Delilahcat]

I can remember as a very small child attending my cousin's wedding in the winter of 1947. We came out of the reception and the snow was so deep my dad had to carry me. My husband was 11 in 1947 and he remembered walking down New Road in Boldon Colliery behind the snowplough to get to school.
In 1963 I can remember the football and racing being off much to the disgust of my dad. I worked in Newcastle and never missed a days work as the trains and buses kept running.

[eddieg]

Greencroft and consett 1963
http://s215.photobucket.com/albums/cc194/tedg50/snow/

[Mr Smith]

Winter of 1947 my brother and I struggled through several feet of snow to get to Laygate School.
We were met at the school gate and told to go back home as the school was closed. My brother
had cried all the way there and all the way back home. In those days the men on the dole had
to help clear the snow.

[Jarrow Pete]

Can remember the hard winter we had in 1963,it was the very cold temperatures that were the problem.We had one really heavy snow shower that froze and lay on the ground for months,I wore my pit boots for walking on the ice until it thawed.

[captain beefheart]

Its good to see the pictures of greencrft and consett, i live in a village not to far away and the old timers still talk about 47 and 63 how they were cut off for up to 6 weeks for other than some special trucks that could get through with supplies,