Even during the "classic" winters there's a great deal of
significant local
variation. During the 1962/63 winter I was working at
Prestwick Airport,
commuting 30 miles by motorbike from Largs. There was very
little snow during
that winter and it wasn't especially frosty. The notable
feature of the winter
for a motorbike commuter was that it was very dry in that part
of the country.
From my point of view that winter was something that happened
elsewhere.
Norman Lynagh

I remember 1962-63 as epecially snowy, because there was so much
snow lying on the playing fields at school that we could not
play hockey or lacrosse, and instead went for walks and
sledging - a very much pleasanter alternative. That was at St
Andrews.

Also, I first went skiing on Cairngorm in January 1964, when
there was very little snow and we had to trek miles up across
the heather to find a patch of snow big enough to do a single
turn on. In the evenings, the ski school added insult to injury
by showing us films taken the previous winter of the ski road
with snow walls either side higher than the buses, and people
actually skiing down and jumping across the road with traffic
passing below. (I bet elfansafety would have quite a lot to say
about that these days, if they're not too busy forbidding
emergency teams to rescue people in mine shafts.)

Which just goes to back up Norman's point about significant
local variation.

Anne