The snow days BEFORE we were wimps!

Before we became a nation of wimps

THE first snowflakes of winter 2017 had barely settled before Britain’s schools went into full meltdown this week.

As Storm Caroline cast a chilly pall over the UK, one seat of learning after another locked its doors and, with a predictable cry about health and safety, declined to teach its pupils. More than 2,300 were closed on Monday and yesterday — over 48 hours after the first snowfall — scores more were still shut.

‘School closures happen because of an emergency like severe weather,’ the government’s website, Gov UK, declared frostily. But in timorous, post-millennial Britain, what is ‘an emergency’, and how ‘severe’ does weather have to be before life grinds to a halt?

Are we, as Max Hastings argued in yesterday’s Mail, becoming ‘a limp-wristed nation, a society of whingers and suers’?

As these pictures show, there was a time — well within living memory — when Britain battled through snow and ice. The Big Freeze of 1962-63 lasted until March. It was so cold that the sea froze up to a mile off shore. But the schools — most of them — stayed open.

Although shorter, the winter of 19461947 was even worse. Rationing was still in place and there was only enough coal to last four weeks. Herds of livestock froze to death on Welsh hillsides. Australia and Canada sent food parcels.

Yet, as Britain shivered, life went on. In Sheffield, future Cabinet minister Roy Hattersley was one of the many toboganning children using the roads as a daily Cresta Run.

But only after 4pm — his school stayed open, you see.

Charge! Children at Walton-on-the Hill County School pelt the photographer with snowballs in 1977. No winter footwear here: it’s Start-rite shoes and sandals instead

The slippery slope: Playground skaters in short trousers at Nightingale School, Hornsey, North London in 1931

Please, Miss! In 1935, a resourceful teacher delivers an al fresco lesson on snow crystals

From yesterday’s Mail WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BRITISH GUMPTION?

What’s a 4x4, 4x4 Dad? Three youngsters give each other a helping hand on their way to Donington Nursery School at Albrighton, Shropshire, in January 1982

Winter wonderland: It’s all smiles at a crowded playground at a school in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, in 1978

Give it some wellie: Britain froze in the early months of 1947, but these Derby schoolboys are having a great time

The Battle of Stavely Road School: A cheeky chap from Chiswick, West London, takes aim in 1958

Keep up! Diana takes four-year-old William to his first day at London’s Wetherby School in January 1987