1963 Winter Tales

Just wondered if anyone had any stories to tell about the 1963 winter?. I was living at Darnall and what I remember most is being unable to go to school (Whitby Road) for several days. I had 4 brothers and a sister and it drove my Mother barmy !.

Sadly, that would be my only true memory of the snow then.

I was 8yrs old in 1963 and lived at the top end of Shiregreen on Oaks Fold Rd.

Our house was just opposite Concord park. That winter was really bad with snow but it was so much fun for us kids. I spent hours in the park in the snow. I can remember the huge snow drifts in the park which were magical. Happy days.

My memory is that on the TV it showed the worst swathe of snow had swept across England from the east in a downward sweep to the west and south, the worst of it passed to the south of Sheffield and though it was a bad winter in Sheffield and surrounds it wasn't a lot worse than some previous years but it did hit the south worst of all.

Walked from the bus terminus at Lodge Moor up to Stanage Pole on a beautiful sunny but very cold day. Then walked across to Stanage Edge where drifting snow had completely obliterated the rocks. Someone had dug a tunnel down into Robin Hood's cave. We slid down from the edge on our back sides to the road at the bottom. Never forget that, happy days !

I have lots of memories of that winter and I've recorded them in my memoir, "Starting to Frame." "Nationwide, the winter of 1962–63 was horrendous—the coldest on record since 1795. ... even the beer and the diesel oil froze, as did the Thames and a sizable stretch of the North Sea... brought down power lines, caused villages to be cut off, and livestock to perish. ... merchants trying to sell fresh fruit and veggies at the old open-air Sheaf market had a hard time convincing customers they were not employees of Bird’s Eye® foods, flogging the frozen varieties. Cabbages as hard as cannonballs, apples that could have come in handy on the summertime cricket pitch, and bananas that could deliver a blow.

The double-decker buses struggled around hilly Sheffield, . ..the Snake and Woodhead passes across the Pennines were blocked by drifting snow. Gelignite was used to clear a way through...In the city suburbs, a milk deliveryman’s body was found in a snow bank and just north of Sheffield, the bodies of two climbers were found encased in a tomb of ice. ..The workers at the power stations chose this time of national crisis to work-to-rule, to add insult to injury."

Most of the above I can actually remember.The fine details I got from microfiche editions of The Star and Sheffield Telegraph at the Local Studies Library. I "chose" that winter to invest 20 pounds in buying a beat up 1947 Ford Anglia, which I mostly pushed around the city streets as it hardly ever functioned.

I would have been 15 years old and my parents had a break-in when someone got into the garage by smashing a window, and pinched some tools. However, they cut themselves quite badly on the glass and the police were able to follow the blood trail in the snow for over 3 miles straight to the thief's home. I followed the same path on my way to school every day and the blood was still visible over a month later as the snow and ice never melted due to the exceptional low temperatures.

I don't recall it being a particularly bad winter.

I would have been in the early years of grammar school, and certainly can't remember missing school despite a three mile bus journey to get there.

There were no particular heavy falls of snow so the main roads were not really affected. It was just that the temperatures were so low, for so long, that any snow showers that fell landed on the ice and snow that were already there. causing minor roads and pavements to be really dangerous and football matches etc to be continually postponed.

The snow was preceded by a couple of weeks of very cold, very calm weather. The snow started falling in the evening of Boxing Day & continued, on & off, for the rest of 1962 & through January & February 1963. The depth of snow was never that great; a couple of feet at most if I remember correctly. There were, however, some huge drifts caused by the bitterly cold NE winds. The snow began to clear during the second week in March. I remember being genuinely surprised to see patches of grass showing through after 10 weeks of snow on the ground.

I was 7 at the time and remember the constant snowball fights and sledging on our street Ditchingham in pitsmoor also the chilblains after playing out.

i remember taking food to brightside and grimesthorpe on a sledge the milk was frozen solid . we ended up pulling doors off to burn it was that cold . the rail sidings on brightside was a god send we used to nip over the wall and find coal it was free if you dint get caught