Warm Steamy Snowey Nostalgic Memories...!!!!

Oh, yeah. I remember '62/63. I was staying at my Aunties house when it came down. The toilet was outside and the snow had drifted so high that we actually made a tunnel in the snow to get to the toilet. :hehe: As we were digging the snow we had to trample it down to make room to dig the tunnel. :hehe: I then had a 2 mile walk (uphill) to get home. I walked in the middle of the road 'cause the snow had blown off of the crown of the road and it only reached my thighs.:hehe: Not many cars on the road in those days I had to get home by 10 a.m. 'cause Dad had told me I had to get back by then. I got back at about 11 a.m What I got was "you're late". However I didn't get a clip round the ear so I guess he accepted that the weather might have had an effect on my walking abilities. We had cold weather after that and the snow was piled up on the sides of the roads 'till April.
All this looks like ramblings of an old git, BUT the schools didn't close, the council had snow-ploughs that they could fit on the front of their lorries to push the snow to the sides, don't see them now. We didn't have motorways then but the main roads were passable very quickly.
Mum used the underground to get to work,where we lived it was "overground" and she didn't miss a day. Dad was a bricklayer but he went into work everyday, guess they found something to do or chatted all day.
The world has turned and I wouldn't like to go back to those days but we've lost something and I don't know what.

 

Frostbite? :hehe:

 

What a lovely film. A bit "arty" in parts but it just goes to show that manpower, steam locos and oilburners can keep the train running. Third rail seems pathetic by comparison!

Chris

 

Nice pics, John. My husband just said it reminds him of the days when his Mum/Gran/Auntie would make him wear one of those regulation woolly balaclava things which made all tots look like mini terrorists. He would always chuck his in the nearest hedge the moment he got around the corner, but there was always some ancient relative or other who would knit another.

 

My older brother got into trouble that winter. He and his friend's built a huge snowman in front of a neighbour's gate and they couldn't get out!:D

Chris

 

I enjoyed watching the film.
One thing that struck me was how lightly everyone was dressed, just a jacket and a scarf, no gloves even.
I can see the nostalgia of it all but I doubt any of us would truly want to go back, it was probably not as good as we remember.

I must say that maybe the railway should consider going back to steam or even diesel when you see the complete chaos an inch of ice can cause on the live rail we have in the Southeast.

 

Dont get me wrong Marley I know where your coming from but its easy for it to look good, we tend to remember the good bits and forget the not so nice side of it all.

For starters you were a kid, and that makes a big difference.:wink:

The older you get the more you worry about things.

Turn your central heating off and get your water from the well, boil it on the stove and have a bath in front of the fire.
I'm sure you'll think twice.:D

 

I thought this thread was beginning to remind me of something ...


Monty Python's Flying Circus -
"Four Yorkshiremen"

[ from the album Live At Drury Lane, 1974 ]

The Players:
Michael Palin - First Yorkshireman;
Graham Chapman - Second Yorkshireman;
Terry Jones - Third Yorkshireman;
Eric Idle - Fourth Yorkshireman;
The Scene:
Four well-dressed men are sitting together at a vacation resort.
'Farewell to Thee' is played in the background on Hawaiian guitar.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You're right there, Obadiah.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
A cup o' cold tea.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Without milk or sugar.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Or tea.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In a cracked cup, an' all.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
ALL:
They won't!