Tales of winters past

It is the beginning of the first week of January and outside all is grey, dull and mild. I think this winter we have seen one morning of frost and not a hint, at least in Kent, of snow. There can be no little doubt about that winters have been getting milder over the years. And anyway, I got thinking about the most severe winters Britain has had since the war.

1963 was the one my Mother told me about and how bad it was; looking at the Wiki entry, it suggests that December 1962 was cold, with snowfalls through the month, but it began in earnest on Boxing Day. More snow arrived on the 29-30th, with drifts in the west country some 20 feet deep. January was the coldest month in the 20th century. The sea froze for a mile at Herne Bay in Kent for a mile; Mum also said that the sea froze at Lowestoft. Fears were expressed in Parliament that the Straits of Dover might become blocked with ice.

February saw more snow and gales to drift what snow was laying.

It finally broke on March 6th with a thaw followed by severe flooding.

In 1947, it all began on the 21st of January. Snow and gales swept the country, and even the Scilly Isles were under 7 inches of snow.

February was one of the coldest months on record; the ferry service between Dover and Ostend was suspended due to pack ice(!) In some places, snow fell for 26 out of the 28 days in the month. Coming so soon after the war, food was still rationed, and rations were reduced to below war levels as root vegetables were frozen in the ground. Coal could not be moved on the railways, power was restricted to 19 hours a day, TV was suspended and radio output, reduced. Newspapers were reduced to just four pages and many magazines stopped production.

In March one of the worst blizzards of the 20th century occurred, which left drifts up to 7m deep in places. The cold finally broke on March 10, which brought major floods, and the disruption meant that humanitarian aid had to be supplied to parts of Britain.

I guess my point is this; we are so used to mild winters, no disruption to transport or power that we take it for granted. And yet it can bite here, and can be severe; and can be again. Our food is now transported from one end of the country and back again, most freight goes now by road which is more prone to disruption. It will be interesting to see how Britain coped with such winters in the 21st century. It is estimated that GDP was down by 10% just because of the cold; imagine what that could do to a Britain trying to emerge from a double-dip recession…….

In other news we spent the evenings last week watching documentaries on Queen Victoria and her children. They showed two first about her daughters then sons. She was really shockingly horrid to them, judged them on their looks first, and how like Albert they were. As for their daughters, she seemed jealous of them, and once Albert died wanted to keep as many of them by her side. And all the while writing to all of them criticising them, berating them for perceived weaknesses. Quite how any of them emerged from behind her shadow mentally intact it amazing. But they did, for better or worse.
The last one was on Victoria’s childhood and succession to the throne, and how her Mother and ‘advisor’ tried to steal power that would have come to Victoria had she got the throne before she was 18. That she turned out so similar to her Mother is really quite sad, but all this is possible to discuss as most letters were either kept of transcribed.

I guess this was the last time there was anything like a battle for the crown, and the scheming that could go on in the background; a real game of crowns.