History Features

Do you have memories of the winter of 1962-3?

Graham Wright.
It was Boxing Day 1962. I was aged 12. I was at my Gran and Gramps at Bagpath across the valley from Thrupp when it started snowing, soon the snow was as big as golf balls and it was getting deeper by the minute. My uncle who was with us left in a panic. He had to get off the hill and get home. He had a old three wheel Reliant butchers van with motorcycle forks. , an evening that I will never forget!

ben
wow

Peter Tickner
If the sheep at Waterley Bottom were buried who knew where to drop the feed? How did the sheep know that feed had been dropped for them?

Mike Jones.
We lived on the Selsley Middleyard border in 1962- 63 and I remember my brother Dave and I helping to push countless cars up the hill through the Village, It snowed non stop for several days and nights, we had no central heating in those far of times and the frost and ice formed inside the house all over the windows. We had to walk to school at Archway for several weeks because the busses could not make the hills.The snow ploughs would open the roads and then it would snow again and freeze solid making them impassable again. The snow drifts on Selsley hill were 20ft deep and being children at the time we loved it, sledgeing down the common with the only means of stopping at the bottom was to slide into a snowdrift. At night we would all huddle around a two bar electric fire in the front room but somehow we seemed to manage, and kept warm, until the next car got stuck and my brother and I would be outside in a flash pushing it up the hill, sometimes we got the car to the top of the hill but more often than not we would fail in our atempt and the car would turn around and slide back down the hill using the snowdrifts on the side of the road as a means of stoping, some times they were unable to turn and would slide down the hill at great speed going backwards.

Howard Tredwell
I can vividly recall the winter of 62/63, at the time of the first snow falls we were up at my Grans in Manchester and there was hardly any snow at all. We traveled back down south in the first week of January, coming down by Yelloways coaches to the old Black & White station. As we came further south we noticed how more and more snow there was until we eventually arrived in Cheltenham.After my mum, dad and younger brother had toddled around to the Royal Well only to be told there were no buses going to Alderton, or would be for sometime,concerned my dad eventually found a taxi driver who would venture out that far into the countryside. I always remember him saying " don't know if the snowploughs have got that far , but I'll give it a try".As a 9 yr old the mountains of snow on either side of the road were fascinating with excitement, my parents attitude were more serious though. We had been in Manchester for 2 weeks, so they were concerned as to the state the house may be in.When we got to Alderton no one could be seen it was white all over, the house was fine, the pipes had been sufficiently lagged so there were no bursts( had there had been the other year).A fire was started and meal readied, but before all that i had to go exploring, my footprints in all that virgin snow, i then became aware that i could see no hedges, and i had ventured further from the house than i should have, when i suddenly disappeared down a snowdrift, i had in fact walked over a hedge, and there was a weak point made by the brook that was still running underneath the snow next to the hedge. After a struggle i climbed back out wet, muddy and cold. Hmm better get back home and find out whats happened to my friends, the rest of the exploring can wait until then.School was closed a further week so off we all went sledging to our hearts content, building igloos( but could never get that roof right)and always getting a row from my mum due the number of times i had to change out of wet clothes, esp soggy socks.Yes it was cold blizzards came every other day, but wow what a time for a child, its amazing that if that were to happen now i wonder what my attitude were to be

Becky Benneyworth (Stroud)
I was six and remember walking from Burleigh to Minchinhampton School once the snow abated. There was a JCB digging a way through Dr Brown's Road.On the day after Boxing day the milk didn't come and it took my dad 4 hours to walk to Blueboys dairy and back to collect milk for us all (four small children at the time). Mum thought he had fallen in a drift in the "dillys" on the common, but he was helping the many stuck motorists on the Cirencester road.

Ray Sherman
I knew the gentleman in the foreground of the picture of Sharpness Docks, it's my late father, Ken. Incidentally, towards the end of the winter I fell into the dock. I didn't linger there either

Peter Davis (alias Pistol pete @ Frocester)
I was twelve years old at the time, and had been fishing on the Thames by the Thames Head Inn at Lechlade with my elder brother Chris and his friend Pat from Brownshill who drove us there. As we fished the river it became colder and colder then started to lightly snow mid to late afternoon. We decided that we had better venture back home in case it got worse. As we approached Cirencester it became a white out, we then travelled back to the Uplands in Stroud to collect Pats family who had been sharing Boxing day with our family. We had to leave the car out side of the Fountain Inn and walk upto the Uplands to collect them this we did via a sledge. they managed to get back upto Brownshill via dark lane although very steep it was shelterd from the worst of the snow. lucky them. For me it was back to Peghouse farm first thing in the morning and delivered the milk with the aid of an American Jeep which had be customised to be a milk float and general farm vehicle, this was able driven by John Phillips the incumbant farmer, I have seen photos of a single track going along Landsdown and I am sure it was our tracks as we had one of the very few fourweel drive vhicles, every day we had to dig our way out of the farm and back again because the snow would drift back over the walls and hedges which served to edge the rough track which serviced the farm, then to cap it all we used to bottle not only the milk produced on the farm but Stan Fletchers milk as well this milk came from abve Swifts hill above Slad and had to be collected daily as the farm worker who was driving the tractor delivering the milk to us skidded on the ice and over the edge of the the steep drop just below Swift hill, and could not be rescued for many weeks due to the conditions the tractor laid on its side awiting rescue, but this all ment that we also had to dig our way all the way up there and back again. It was very hard and laboreous work but great fun. It was the same fun as we skidded across Stratford park lake every day!on the way home from Archaway School, I dont think we will see the like again!!

Muriel Beaumont
How can we forget that winter. I remember walking home from Smiths Industries at Bishops Cleeve past the Race Course to Cheltenham. The road was blocked with vehicles, most of them were totally covered with snow. The two miles walk home seem to take for ever.

Mavis Balsdon
I remember it well as I got married in February 2003 at Churchdown Methodist Church. Relatives from the North had a bad journey down. I seemed to be the only one not wearing brand new shoes whilst everyone else was slipping around. The snow was at least 6ft high on the A40 as we travelled to London for a short honeymoon. Those were the days when we just coped!

LAURENCE TRANTER
I WAS NINE/TEN YEARS OF AGE,LIVING IN THE BOURNE BRIMSCOMBE I WAS ABLE WALK OVER A 10FT WALL WERETHE SNOW DRIFTED AGAINST TTHE WALL,THIS WAS AT THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE.I WENT SLEDGING AT BROWNSHILL BANKS AS IT KNOWN IN THOSE DAYS.ALL THE NIGHBOURS HELPED TO CLEAR THE SNOW IN THE LANE

Monique Parker in Australia now
After 2 years in Australia my husband baby daughter and I made the mistake of being back in England for the worst winter experienced in our lifetime, one of the reason we came back to Australia.

peter a kafkaris
i remember going to wark on my push bike, and fell every 50 yards because it was the first time i ever saw and rode in SNOW. regards from sunny CYPRUS. P A KAFKARIS

Roger Denston
We lived in Churchdown at the time and I remember that Pirton Lane in the cutting by the RAF married quarters was full of snow up to about twenty feet. It was for us kids, Iwas nine at the time, a wonderful extended holiday with snow thrown in!!!