Huge Snow Drifts 1963!

Paul Starling
Anyone remember the snow in 63? Huge drifts way above our heads.


Trev Teasdel The maths teacher (with the whole class) gave me the bumps in it on my 13th birthday (after throwing a board rubber at me for getting a sum wrong!  He then slippered me to 'warm me up'! The drifts in the lane were even higher after the plough had been through.



Michael Billings  I was at Shepton Mallett when the snows came on Boxing Day 1962 and all through January we had to clear the snow from the local hospital so the ambulances could get in and out. You cleared it one day, it snowed again each night and the next day we had clear it away again. This lasted until i relocated to Hampshire at the end of January 1963. In Hampshire the snow was waste high where i lived and it lasted well into March.


Paul Nicholas Williamson That is a MM coach from Cleobury, take note of the bt pole and the eight way arms, know all about that after working 46 years for bt as a planner.


Trev Teasdel  That picture's just like I remember it in the lane outside the school towards 6 Ashes!



Paul Nicholas Williamson

Yep, my last year at the school, didn't clear until near the end of March, it was all there in its glory the night before and the thaw came and it went overnight.

John Burke

Also that first year in the winter I can remember the snow had drifted up the side of the dorm and it was six feet high. We still had to make the run across to the ablutions block in PJs and slippers.
From Topix

This photo is actually Cleobury in 1947 but 1963 was similar

Rosemary Webb Rehill "Brilliant photo. I remember that winter well. The drifts of snow were as high as the hedges. We had the best time on our sleds across the road past the Jack's house."


Paul Nicholas Williamson "The snow in 63 was as good as the photo, didn't clear until well into March, I remember being bored with it in the end as it became a dirty grey coloured and just stayed the same for ages."

Trev Teasdel " Cliff Richard was No 1 with Summer Holiday for a few weeks in Feb with snow drifts outside!" There used to be winter sledging on the other side that dipped to the Cleobury Mortimer entrance.


Michael Billings  Home made sledges seemed to appear from nowhere when the snow came. Wood was collected and lots of feverish sawing and banging to build your own and if you were lucky you managed to put metal strips on the runners so you could go faster. It was ingenious to see the variety of sledges. Grazed my knees a few times on the slope i can tell you.

Rosemary Webb Rehill  Back in the 60's, it just seemed to snow for ever. I remember flying down that hill in the glen on a large white sled. We had to jump off before it hit the trees at the bottom!!

Mick Gajic Anyone remember we all chipped in to make a sled run from the air raid shelter by the swimming pool, down the football pitch/cricket pitch, and we made a tunnel and took it in turn's to go through, just as i was going down the run some lads crashed in the tunnel, and I went straight into them, no one was hurt seriously, after tea every night we watered the course to make it icy.

There used to be winter sledging on the other side that dipped to the Cleobury Mortimer entrance.

Trev

The blizzards were all over the country - here's a BBC News report