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cupcake
Super Member
5403 Posts |
 Posted - 10/01/2022 : 05:58:32
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Morning everyone ,my friends and i was having a conversation yesterday and a lovely couple were telling us about the bad Winter of 1963 ,any forum members got any memories to share of that Winter or even the Winter of 1947?  cupcake xx
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Exbrompton
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
260 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2022 : 11:09:44
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| 1947 Schools closed for weeks.My father walked home from Markham Pit in the morning on top of the hedges.Collecting milk and bread on sledges.Snow up to the bedroom windows.All the men digging out the railway line.My wife stuck in a train all night at Argoed,given cups of tea by the people living next to the line. |
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keanjo
Super Member
United Kingdom
1402 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2022 : 11:14:21
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1947,1 remember walking the trefil road at the same level as the telephone wires and digging down to a single decker bus which had been abandoned the night before.I also recall digging a tunnel from the back door.to the coal house and outside toilet.
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ddraig
Super Member
United Kingdom
1736 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2022 : 12:37:19
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| In the snow of 1963, we didn't have running water for weeks, we had to use taps off the stopcocks on the pavement and fill buckets, cars were covered and everything froze, the roads were like glass, schools closed for weeks. If I remember correctly it started on Boxing day 1962 and went on well into the new year. |
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Snowy
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
562 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2022 : 12:39:42
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| And they call it Global warming now. |
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nutandboltdarlo
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
152 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2022 : 14:49:42
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quote:
Originally posted by ddraig
In the snow of 1963, we didn't have running water for weeks, we had to use taps off the stopcocks on the pavement and fill buckets, cars were covered and everything froze, the roads were like glass, schools closed for weeks. If I remember correctly it started on Boxing day 1962 and went on well into the new year.
Yes, I remember the stopcocks and collecting water in as many buckets/bowls as it was possible to carry. I don’t think the water was permanently ‘on tap’. I think it was only available at certain times in the day. Wasn’t it early March when the thaw finally came? Even then we couldn’t use the domestic supply until the many burst pipes were repaired. As far as the roads were concerned, I remember hearing that every Red & White bus in the Tredegar depot was involved in some kind of ice-related collision during that period. Somehow we coped with it all. |
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ike
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
245 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2022 : 16:03:12
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Yes ,I remember it ; my mother and two younger sisters were strand in Blackwood railway unable to get home until the following day, having gone to Cardiff to see a pantomime in the New Theatre. The new road to Pochin and Markham Pits was blocked .Mr Tallis general manager of Tredegar Group of Pits on skies organising miners at central stores with shovels to clear the new road down to Pochin.
I was apprentice at Tredegar workshops and helped to put two locos back on the tracks at Ty Trist. Failed with Menalaus because one of the cylinders had was damaged.
No 5 Mill roof collapsed because of weight of snow .Blizzard lasted all day.
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milkman
Super Member
United Kingdom
1676 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2022 : 20:09:20
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Yes Ike, I well remember the weight of snow/ice caused the roof of No 5 mill to collapse, They removed the entire building in only a few days.
There was significant snow left in March. I attended a wedding in the Cong and drove up from Newport on snow covered toads. |
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trefilboy
Advanced Member
Canada
309 Posts |
Posted - 10/01/2022 : 20:45:27
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I don't remember 1947(too young)but it was early that yr that my parents moved from Trefil to Blackwood and I heard them say many times of driving down the valley in a "corridor" where the plow had cut a path. The was an old photo of the car between the snow banks.'63 I remember very well. My uncle Islwyn Perkins walked from Lower Farm down to Pochin and then up over the mountain to Markham Common to rescue some horses. We were walking on snow and the tops of the telephone poles were just sticking a few feet out of the snow. We actually walked the horses back over the mountain and back to the farm. Took us all day, and we talked about the adventure for years.
trefilboy |
Edited by - trefilboy on 10/01/2022 20:48:03 |
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Snowy
Advanced Member
United Kingdom
562 Posts |
Posted - 11/01/2022 : 12:55:39
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quote:
Originally posted by milkman
Yes Ike, I well remember the weight of snow/ice caused the roof of No 5 mill to collapse, They removed the entire building in only a few days.
There was significant snow left in March. I attended a wedding in the Cong and drove up from Newport on snow covered toads.
Poor Toads, tee hee. |
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cupcake
Super Member
5403 Posts |
Posted - 18/01/2022 : 06:24:26
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Thank you for sharing your lovely memories pleasure to read ,like my mother would say hard days but better days when people would help eachother and you could leave the door unlocked ,keep safe cupcake xx
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Topic |
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Bad Winters
