1963: The BIG FREEZE | Tonight | Science and Nature | BBC Archive

Derek Hart looks at the big freeze of 1963, one of the coldest winters on record in the UK, when it snowed from December '62 to February '63.
During this period there was snow on the ground for 60 days, with chaos on the roads and railways. The long bitterly cold spell caused lakes and rivers to freeze, even turning sea water in some of England's harbours to ice.
Clip taken from Tonight, originally broadcast on BBC Television, Tuesday 31 December, 1963.
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[@jennil7797]

It was the best winter of my childhood! No school for over two months, sledging, snowballing and ice slides and sleeping on our mattresses dragged to the sitting room to stay warm by the coal fire . Tough on my mother trying to make meals when the shops ran out of supplies and there were no deliveries though, and even more on my policeman father on foot patrol through heavy snow for hours at a stretch.

[@CHUTNEX]

I'm shivering just watching it!

[@langsettranger]

My Dad too was a policeman during this Arctic weather 🛷🏔️🥶🌨️❄️🇬🇧

[@kevinwilliams1602]

No School, our school never closed we went to school every day week days that is

[@grahamthacker6498]

I remember it well.

[@davidcorbin6236]

The snowmen we made on Thursday December 27th were still there on March 1st...what a winter.

[@NorthernsoulBoy63]

Was born Jan 1st 63 I was cold then and still am. 😢

[@tjm3900]

I was 7 years old, we lived in SE London, I remember Dad thawing out the pipe that fed water to the tank on our toilet. Our only heat was an open coal fire in the living room and a Paraffin heater in the kitchen. At night we would take rubber hot water bottles with us to bed. Upstairs bedrooms were below freezing, I remember a glass of water by my bed having ice on it :-(

[@MrDaiseymay]

There was an excellent documentary on BBC TV a few nights ago, about that other terrible winter, 1947. I was 5 yrs old. That year was worse, because ,not only were houses poorly built and those that survived the blitz, had no Central Heating (usually just one coal fire) NO Double Glazing, or insulation of any kind. Outside toilet, which froze solid, breaking the toilet bowl, and caste Iron Cistern. Water pipes froze then burst. On top of this, many things were still on ration, including Coal. We had to walk to the coal depot with our own buckets, old prambs and trollys, waite in huge queues for out rations worth, then push /carry it all home. Much of that coal had gravel and stones in it, which exploaded once hot enough, and shoot accross the room like bullets. It was called by the people, ''Nutty Slack''. There were no huge snow clearing machines then. like buldozers etc, well I never saw any. I too couldn't go to school, Although the playground was seen from my bedroom window, but many schools were closed, because there was no heating fuel. 1963 was very bad for many, but 1947 was worse, because of the above shortages and home conditions etc

[@borderlands6606]

My great aunt lived in a country cottage in '47, and I'm told the council had to dig a tunnel to her house so she didn't suffocate, as the place was completely covered. The deepest snow I experienced was in 1990, though it only lasted a few days. I opened the back door one morning to find snow chest high. Dug myself out and all the power and phone lines were down.

[@songsmith31a]

Pre-climate change people knew all about the unpredictability of Nature and are probably the last to go along totally with the politically orchestrated (follow the money) agenda that has us facing "net zero" policies here in advanced Western countries, whilst the rest of the world ignores such draconian impositions and science neglects to address the reality of world-wide volcanic activity above and beneath the oceans (including methane emissions that are reported from the ocean bed in huge quantities) and solar flares that have a demonstrable effect on the climate.

[@keithdeley7236]

I remember it well ,it lasted for weeks but we still went to school,

[@user-or4hs7xq9u]

Kids were tough back then. I walked to primary school in winter without a jacket, school was 25 minutes away on foot

[@raymondskinner9508]

I seriously doubt there will EVER be another winter that even comes remotely close to the ferocity of 1962/3 or indeed early 1947. If it did we would be in BIG BIG trouble

[@davidpeters6536]

In these days very few people had central heating as we know it today, never mind double glazing. I remember it well and still have pictures of me sledging.

[@daveac]

Remember that winter - ice on the inside of your bedroom windows (single glazed glass of course)

[@letsbeavenue]

And with metal window frames, couldn’t open them, if you wanted, for months, all frozen up on the insides

[@songsmith31a]

And lighting a coal fire in the living room before breakfast, with the help of a broadsheet newspaper to suck life into the embers/flames. Yet we just got on and dealt with it, adapting and achieving without the whining and scaremongering we witness today.

[@user-or4hs7xq9u]

Yes, I remember single glazing, wooden frame and that curly metal latch

[@Funeeman]

Boy this brings back shivering memories. I left school that year.

[@Jamesyahyah]

Snap

[@me-cu7ds]

Remember it well....may have been a paralysing but most work went on and we still went to school. I had a paper round and still had t do it and no football for months....happy days. 10 cms of snow now and the world stops

[@holaclive]

I remember that winter, I was seven. We used to go to school in short trousers 😂 COLD 😂

[@philipmilner9638]

Winters were long, but so were the summer days.

[@colinb8103]

The worst winters I can remember were Mike and Bernie

[@KiltedGreen]

In north Norfolk my younger brother and I made snow pies on the beach but I don’t remember much more than that.

[@richardsmith579]

I was twelve and loved every minute of it. Sledging, skating, and endless fun. We didn’t have frozen pipes and we had enough coal. Everyone we knew still got to work. This was my happiest winter.

[@oliveringram3056]

Me too. Tough on a farm, Cattle to feed every day. Kettles of hot water to thaw out frozen ballcocks on water troughs, crow bars to break the ice on the troughs. No snow ploughs out in the countryside, our village was cut off for weeks. My father tied Tea Chests onto the plough, and managed to get to the nearby town to fetch Milk, Bread etc for the villagers. Highlight for us kids was no school....

[@gaynorsmith4596]

Is that you, Uncle Richard? Gaynor xxxx

[@fredo1070]

My dad told me about this, cars were frozen in blocks of ice for months.

[@LordWalsallian]

Our climate has defintely changed. We used to get snow every year, thunderstorms that lasted hours and heat every Summer, it used to be pretty predictable. Nowadays it's always just damp, mild dross. I'd love to see snow like this in the UK again one day.

[@andrewwhitehouse3869]

God help us if it did!!! Local council or country in general can't cope if we have an inch of snow these days 🤔

[@danyoutube7491]

I was born in '81 and enjoyed at least one decent snowfall most winters (based on memories of playing with friends and also photos of me as a baby and toddler). I noticed as the 90s went on that a proper snowfall was becoming quite rare, and from 2000-2010 I didn't see more than an inch, some years not even that, and it's been much the same since - with the exception of 2010 when it was horrendous for a few weeks. Quite a lot of snow and the temperatures persisted well below freezing for a few weeks, making for attractive snowy scenes but very icy and uncomfortably cold too. That was the coldest winter I've ever experienced and the worst - apart from being too old to have snowball fights it was just far too cold to be pleasant doing that sort of thing, and trying to get to work (waiting for trains to turn up...) was no fun! As you say, all we get now is mildly cold and damp, not fun. Maybe a bit of ice occasionally to slip on! It's also not good for gardeners or nature in general, because it allows pests to survive in stronger numbers over winter and for new pests from abroad to survive here.

[@MarkNobes]

Yes, definitely. I was born in 1968 and remember we used to get 2 or 3 decent snowfalls each winter until the 90s. I remember 1981/82 and '87 being particularly bad, but we had many cold winters in the 70s and 80s. We used to go sledging in the Cotswold hills. The snow used to hang around for many days, too. Rarely snows here any more, sadly, just relentless rain, and when it does snow it disappears quickly.

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

@@andrewwhitehouse3869 Decades of capitalist austerity in order to shovel our wealth into the pockets of the rich class have denuded our country of public services. Private affluence, public squalor.

[@revpadma]

I remember it and I wouldn't like to see it again! I can remember waiting for a bus crying with the pain if the cold and I remember digging my cat out from under 6ft of snow where she'd got trapped. It lasted about 3 months. It was pretty miserable tbh.

[@CHUTNEX]

The winter my sister was born (Feb 63) my mother had vivid memories of it and the advice given to her about caring for a baby in such low temperatures.

[@54pomkiwi]

We lived near Ipswich in Suffolk - I was eight then and I remember it. I got the 'hotaches' for the first time. My older brother took me out sledging on the heath and my hands became wet and extremely cold in my woollen gloves. When we got in my mother held my hands under her arms until they warmed a bit. It was very painful as the circulation came back!

[@HowardLeVert]

Now there's a word I haven't heard in years - "hotaches". And I also remember getting them.

[@lindathomas5500]

My mum used to talk about this winter, large swathes of Cornwall were cut off.. villages helped dig out the lanes so that farmers could get the milk delivered.. there’s some old black and white footage of it on BFI 30 or 40 villagers digging out the farmer and his milk..😄

[@MrDaiseymay]

In the late Summer of '63, I was on a coach trip to Cornwall, we stopped for refreshments at the famous ''Jamaica Inn''. on Bodmin Moor. In that famous Inn ( which has a fire in the grate, burning none stop for over 100 years) On the walls, were photographs, taken back in the winter, from the Inn, of a wilderness of snow, and some, showed a SnowPlow in the distances, fighting it's way towards the Inn. They had been marrooned for 2 months I think it was, but the Peat fire, was kept going.

[@lindathomas5500]

Bodmin moor has always been a bad area (due to its elevation) for snow when it’s hit. That winter the majority of Cornwall’s villages were cut off for months, mainly because the majority of the roads leading into them were our notorious narrow roads, and they couldn’t get the snow ploughs down them. In the end the army stepped in to help, especially for the villages and towns on the north coast of Cornwall that were hit the hardest. Some were under 20ft of snow drift on the narrow roads leading in! Mum said apart from there not being any heating due to no electric (we were in a modern new build that had electric blower hearing system) and no water, it was made worse because the outside world couldn’t get into Cornwall. So shops started running out of everything, as none of the deliveries could get past Plymouth. Mum and dad got married in 62 so it was their first winter as man and wife. My brother arrived in 65 me in 68, mum always said she was glad she wasn’t pregnant during it, as she knew someone who had gone into labour and had to try to get to hospital. @@MrDaiseymay

[@URFUTUREUK]

Aww people would never do that now. I miss community spirit.

[@lindathomas5500]

They would in Cornwall …. Community is huge down here! It’s literally bred into us! 😀But I know what you mean, the one thing I found hard when I went to live in London in my youth, was no one spoke to each other! I remember saying hello when I first moved there to my next door neighbour, and he just looked at me like I had threatened him lol… Soon realised it wasn’t the done thing, even worse on the tubes and buses lol..@@URFUTUREUK

[@lindathomas5500]

They would in Cornwall …. Community is huge down here! It’s literally bred into us Cornish!😀 But I know what you mean, the one thing I found hard when I went to live in London in my youth, was no one spoke to each other! I remember saying hello when I first moved there to my next door neighbour, and he just looked at me like I had threatened him lol… Soon realised it wasn’t the done thing, even worse on the tubes and buses lol.. @URFUTUREUK

[@TopOfThePopsFan]

I remember this, snow drifted up the house.

[@WhatisLifeWithoutMusic5]

I remember as a 9 year old along with my brother helping to dig out my dad's van so he could get to work. Today the country would ground to a halt

[@hawsrulebegin7768]

My wife was born that year. Explains her cold cold ruthless heart.

[@songsmith31a]

This was a memorable time, for me personally as a young Met. Police cadet waiting to join the Force (in early March of that year) and visiting the family home in the snow-filled lanes of the Wiltshire/Berkshire border, with bus services suspended and self-reliance the order of the day - for days/weeks on end! Anyone who lived through that time as an adult will surely retain a healthy respect for the vagaries of Nature, not least in these obsessive politically-orchestrated times focussing on the alleged results of human activity affecting climate change.

[@emmsue1053]

I just about remember this, it was clear at bedtime but when we woke it was windowsill height. I opened the front door in all innocence to have a look & four foot of snow fell in!! I was told to help get it out & had the brain to fetch the shovel.. This of course entailed opening the back door to find one in the shed. LOL Happy days. The milk man still delivered, we were lucky enough to have a some coal & food in. Thick ice inside the windows though, especially upstairs.

[@OldhamSteve52]

My wife was born in 1963. My father in law was in hospital after cutting half a finger off at work. Mother in law would walk 3 miles with pram to visit her husband. Tough people living in hard times, never complained.

[@SuperMissblueeyes]

And I bet they made the best of it instead of complaining about not being able to get to work!

[@anthonymcnamee6297]

I was 8 in London never seen snow like it

[@jasonedwards6870]

My neighbour Bill told me the winter of 1947 was worse than '63! Can anyone on here remember both!?

[@nigden1]

I experienced '62/63, but my father had experienced both, he said '47 had much more snow, but '63 was much colder. I can attest to that, I remember when it started, getting off the school bus, my eyelids were starting to sting and freeze, and a week later my mate just walked over a lake to his house. There were no warnings, there was no point, you could run a train over most waterways.

[@fredo1070]

It was very cold in 47 but it did not snow like in 63, plus there was no coal for heating in 47.

[@Mat-Ellis]

My mother lived thru both and complained a lot more about ‘63. I think the lack of coal made ‘47 very tough. I heard some adults in ‘76 compare that summer drought to the constant snow 13 years earlier. And my grandfather (born 1886) talked about some epic winter in the late 1800s that trumped even ‘47 and ‘63!

[@GeorgeHarrisonDarkHorse]

It’s funny as I was only talking about this with my wife’s sisters father-in-law over Xmas. He’s in his 80s, & he recalls ‘47 being slightly worse than ‘63 in Yorkshire as they’d never seen so much snow…although the wintry weather of 1963 went on longer, & it majorly impacted on the football season, & there was no horse-racing in England between 23 December and 7 March 1963 😳

[@Funeeman]

With temperatures so cold the sea froze in places, 1963 is one of the coldest winters on record. Bringing blizzards, snow drifts, blocks of ice, and temperatures lower than -20 °C, it was colder than the winter of 1947, and the coldest since 1740.

[@veronicabranch-smith7754]

Winter February 1947 at whitstable kent my nannie took me to the beach to see where the sea had frozen. I know it was then as I was staying with her as my brother was being born. ❤

[@OrganMusicYT]

I left school in 2006. We used to get at least one day a year of school every year. Since about the time left, the kids here have not had a single day off because of snow. It's just not happening. Winters are too mild, you can almost count on both hands how many days of frost we get.

[@Jack_Warner]

It's got nothing to do with Climate change, if that's what you're referring to.

[@OrganMusicYT]

@@Jack_Warner it is. One of the facts of the world, the climate changes. That's proof that in my lifetime the climate has changed noticeably.

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

@@Jack_Warner Ah, you have secret knowledge that is unavailable to NASA, the IPCC or any reputable scientific organisation? Do share!

[@johnlennox-pe2nq]

@@OrganMusicYT nah, in the 17th C we had the Little Ice-age - like for 4/5 months of snow, frozen sea, a few yrs over Europe and further.... it gradually got milder - many yrs with v little snow - same cycle as today

[@OrganMusicYT]

@@johnlennox-pe2nq thank you for proving once again that the climate has changed and continues to change.

[@user-uf2uq8rf9j]

I was 6 years old, remember my dad going mental, having to pull me out of the igloo the bigger kids had made me go inside to check it out. Had numb bum for days.

[@campbellgraham1979]

I wasn’t born yet but know all about it with my dad telling me. The worst winter I can remember is the one in 2010. My car got stuck in snow for 2 weeks. I had just been to Farmfoods and just left all the frozen food in the car instead of carrying it home.

[@Jack_Warner]

Yes we had cold winters from 2008 until 2013. I remember well as my Dad died in 2008 and the snow hit early December.

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

@@Jack_Warner Cold, a bit - nothing like the winter of 1962-63. We'll not see the like again, ever.

[@Jack_Warner]

@@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx 1987 was another cold winter. Don't fall for the global warming rubbish. They are using it to control you. Stop you driving, flying, making you adopt useless heat pumps that use a shed load of electricity.

[@sg-zd8eb]

I remember the snow in late November of 2010, and it was so cold that - as I live in Wiltshire - parts of the river Avon had frozen over, something I’d never seen before or since.

[@yungcash8800]

Now that's FREEZING temperatures for ya right there I wouldn't had been outside at all I'll be in the house warm

[@growlerthe2nd712]

Freezing 🥶

[@aflqs1177]

We spent weeks sledging it was great

[@caloricphlogistonandthelum4008]

I was born in September 63, do you think there's any connection?

[@julianaylor4351]

😁

[@AlisonBryen]

😂

[@barbarahalkyard1901]

Was it late September.Back in 63. I remember what a night..

[@MrJakeTucker]

A few years before I was born but my father has told me about this. He was living on the coast in Devon at the time.

[@raymondskinner9508]

In late February 2018 we had pretty ferocious cold, just for a week! Look at the trouble THAT caused-now imagine if it lasted ten times longer-that was Winter 1962/3

[@clouddog2393]

l was nine . Remember walking to school and seeing dead birds on the pavement that had died of cold , ice inside the windows , no buses so being out in the countryside we were cut off for weeks . Of course being a kid it was exciting and great fun not so for the adults . Happy days .

[@Backwardlooking]

Remember it well.

[@andrewwhitehouse3869]

Remember it well, so cold the flame on my lighter froze... 😢 😮 😅

[@pauldurkee4764]

If this happened today, people would be phoning the emergency services to enquire which McDonald's were still open. People just got on with it, if you had no milk delivery you walked to the nearest dairy. Brought up in a house with no central heating you were used to cold, but ice six feet thick, that was something else. It made me shudder seeing that gentleman put candles next to the net curtains.

[@hbeverhart]

it does where I live regulary, nigh on six months of winter, north shore lake superior we dont have a mcdonalds, never had milk delivery, if its minus 40c and the car doesnt start we walk to the shops we just get on with it........ april 12th its quite warm today 3C

[@MichaelBosley]

1:03 Trains in 1963 ploughing through the snow. Trains today are cancelled when there's a leaf on the line.

[@DJSwezzleMusic]

The wrong type of leaf

[@user-wn3cm6jf8e]

So sad we can’t have this today !! Could you imagine the blame game ?? Today’s namby pamby society would collapse. I can recall tobogganing out of first floor bedroom windows and being towed on a sledge nearly a mile to the nearest bus stop so as to get to school. Now schools are shut at the slightest hint of snow - pathetic!!

[@anythingbootneck]

Did anybody else live at Princetown then?

[@shireboundscribbles]

I could do with a winter like this.

[@margaretpowell5546]

I was at school and do go home every weekend and I left school in 1963.

[@michaelstevens3479]

10th of February? it snowed for ten weeks I know I worked through it .

[@paulholland5270]

Paradise we can only wish for 💯😎

[@TASIAawful1]

Huh

[@PlanetImo]

I'd never heard of ice yachting before.

[@julianaylor4351]

I turned 2 that winter. Along with my older brother who was 5, both of us had to stay at home. No school for him. We had a coal fired boiler in our house. The presumption now is that this unusual cold weather was caused by a volcanic eruption in Hawaii.

[@boxsterman77]

There was no major eruption in Hawaii that year. Besides, these are effusive volcanos. The spew relatively little ash into the air as the lava is highly viscous

[@julianaylor4351]

@@boxsterman77 I did say presumed, so it was clearly an incorrect theory, which was believed to be the case. Remember this was the early sixties and metrology and volcanology were not as good as they are today. Besides a major eruption only has to happen in the previous year, to cause problems.

[@ev4898]

Reminds me of COVID since no one went to school for 2 months then.

[@yungcash8800]

It was still school 😂 you had to do classes online

[@user-gg5he1gp7i]

Women bang on about equality, but it's always men that are the strongest and dig us out of the most challenging of situations. Great respect for men.❤

[@firey9998]

All the snowflakes would melt now a days.

[@heinkle1]

The Thames used to freeze over in the 19th century. We will likely see a December/January day reach 25C in the next 20 years.

[@mikethebloodthirsty]

And before 1500 we experienced temperatures to rival the south of France for a few hundred years.... Must've been all those medieval factories and cars that they had

[@shauncorless8965]

The worst winters ,not 47 or 63,,Mike and bernie ,absolutely terrible ,,how bad bernie replaced Mike with a dog 😮

[@briansaiditsoitmustbetrue4206]

Without a doubt the harshest winter in living memory. ..Due to global warming, we will never see another winter as harsh as this again in the UK. Just as well because IF we did we would be screwed.

[@eskimo4130]

Most importantly, were there toilet rolls on the shelves? Just goes to show(?) the iconic steam train is an amazing piece of kit, and if this were to happen again a good infrastructure of railways could keep everybody surviving for some time. It does for certain show that due to our lives being so easy in the modern developed nation of today, we're bombarded by utter BS that really doesn't matter, but yet society as a whole gets so irrationally irritated by it.

[@Valeman7689]

Who used toilet rolls in '63? Squares of newspaper, if you were lucky you had a bit of "Andy Cap" to pass the time. You did'nt stop long as it was a bit chilly in the outside lav.

[@eskimo4130]

@@Valeman7689 soo...?

[@Jack_Warner]

There was an excellent film made for British Transport Films, in 1963. Simply titled, "Snow". It's on YT but I can't link to it.

[@borderlands6606]

Also, Snowdrift at Bleath Gill (1955).

[@Jack_Warner]

@@borderlands6606 Yes, I have that one too.

[@T1M6]

People helped one another and people went to work as best they could. We didn't have central heating, fitted carpets or double glazing but we coped. When I read about the numbskulls putting porridge on the busts in museums ... I have to shake my head in dismay...how would these fools cope ?

[@user-dt3rj8qm3k]

0O:10 Ten seconds in What is the 10'th of "Febually"?

[@bloggalot4718]

I left school in 63 and travelled on a bike to work. The canals froze over and you could walk on the three inch thick ice.

[@henrywilloughby8333]

People today would not cope with a serious bad winter because they are to soft

[@robhavock9434]

It was nothing for a steam train but the country would stop today with leaves on the line God help us.

[@microdot4374]

7 months old, OMG I remember it well??x

[@buskers9520]

Before they started chemtrailing and playing around with the weather.

[@diverdiver729]

I like the phrase it was up to our knees it was because we was 2 foot tall nostalgia

[@user-lz5di8ox7p]

YOU YOUNGSTER HAVE NEVER SEEN 20 FOOT DRIFTS AND WE HAD NO HEATING. JUST A OPEN FIRE.

[@UnjustifiedRecs]

And now when we get 5mm of snow the country grinds to a halt 😂

[@hassyg4083]

rarely get snow now so its ok

[@UnjustifiedRecs]

@@hassyg4083 try living in Yorkshire we get snowed in every year

[@hassyg4083]

@@UnjustifiedRecs untrue. Yorkshire is the biggest county in England. Doesn't snow everywhere there lol

[@UnjustifiedRecs]

@@hassyg4083 I didn't think there'd be so many pendantic bores in this comment section

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

@@UnjustifiedRecs You didn't think anyone would challenge your glib comment.

[@joeboss1750]

Ahhh, doom and gloom, and people actually believe the end of the world is nigh.

[@roymills2211]

I was about 6 months old, don't remember a thing

[@stunews2903]

Somebody should let the woke met office view this to remind them this is all within living memory for many.

[@barbarahalkyard1901]

Back then we didnt use stupid words like woke.

[@stunews2903]

or name storms with silly names@@barbarahalkyard1901

[@freespeech3673]

No hysterical climate alarmism from the BBC back then!

[@SBAYLISS]

If we got this now so many people would die because back then at least they had their coal/log fires to keep warm oh and the most important thing we had politicians who knew what they were doing unlike todays effort.

[@fredo1070]

People were more hardy and tough in those days, less likely to complain.

[@hassyg4083]

yep now youd get fined for that air pollution

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

@@hassyg4083 Of course. Clean air? Don't want that.

[@mikethebloodthirsty]

​​​@@RebeccaTurner-ny1xxyeh as long as the three biggest polluters China, Russia and America go net zero, our net zero tokenism will do nothing except push the poor into poverty. And line the pockets of powerful environmental lobbyists, who use dubious computer modelling to produce whatever data they want, that was SUCH as success during covid wasn't it😂

[@SBAYLISS]

@@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx of course it’s wonderful to have clean air we all want that but you have obviously never been cold.

[@stephfoxwell4620]

What about the nonsense peddled yesterday by the BBC. Hottest Spring and Warmest May ever?