In message , Alan White
writes
On Sun, 15 Feb 2015 23:27:15 +0000, Jim Kewley
wrote:

Winter '47 was too early for me.

I still have quite vivid memories of the '40s winters.

Running round the block in a snowstorm in my dark blue school mac to
build up a breastplate of snow.

Waking up one morning to find a quarter inch layer of ice on top of
about three inches of snow. I think Manley mentions this one in 'Climate
and the British Scene'.

The vicious slides in the school playground.

I remember those, not from the 1940s (as I wasn't born till 1948) but in
the second half of the 1950s when I was at junior school.


The flashes and crackles as the collector shoe on the Southern electrics
bounced over ice on the third rail.

I also remember those, mostly from 1978-9 and the 1980s, at a time when
I used to travel to work by train. It was particularly impressive after
dark, when the flash would reflect off the snow and I imagine could be
seen for miles if you had a line of sight.


Ice on the inside of the metal framed windows.

And that too of course, until we had double glazing installed in the
1980s.


The school caretaker topping up the fuel in the classroom stove.

I don't think I ever had a classroom with an open fire. Always radiators
as far as I can remember.
--
I'm not paid to implement the recognition of irony.
(Taken, with the author's permission, from a LiveJournal post)