"sarah" wrote in message
...


It was 1982. We'd recently arrived from western Canada and were living
in a bedsit in Surrey (large Victorian room with bay window, heated only
by a small 3-bar gas fire; shared bathroom and kitchen were unheated). I
have never been so cold in my life before or since!

regards
sarah




Great point Sarah:-) Did you move from Vancouver? If so I have a freind of
mine there now whose is from Singapore doing a PhD. I bet she feels the cold
as they have just had several days with maximums below 0C She has not
experienced anything below -2C and that was when she was in London doing her
Masters in 1995. She felt the cold then. God knows how she is managing now.


I know what you mean Sarah. I don't know what it is about UK
student accommodation and bedsits etc. They had, and probably still have a
reputation for being unbearably cold.
I was a student at this time and was finishing part of my A levels and
as I lived in Cambridge knew many students and this cold spell as we know
was in a class of its own. Everywhere was freezing indoors. It was no joke,
and I mean that. You could not get warm indoors as at some points it
was -10C by 3.00pm on several days. A lot of places did not have double
glazing then. It is an industry standard now, thank goodness.
This apart from 1987 and 1981 was the only cold spell I have known that
has had ice on the INSIDE of windows DURING THE DAY and I mean ALL DAY. This
was remarkable as it persisted for over a week at a time.
Communal areas in student houses were notorious for being unheated as
when you were a student you paid for your own heating in your own room and
communal areas, well, no'one paid for those so they just froze, literally.
It was dire.
The only thing I can say in its favour is that it taught you to
appreciate things when you were older and then could afford better for
yourself later on in life.
I don't regret this experience at all. However, I really wonder how
today's lot would cope with all this now. I also think sometimes that our
health was at risk in this bitterly cold and inadequately heated
accommodation. I look back on it with a mixture of nostalgia and also
amazement.
If I had kids, would I want them to go through that? I don't think so
somehow.

Regards, Gavin.