I couldn’t go to work for a week

Mike Brown, 85, was living in Shepway and was unable to get to work in East Peckham for a week.

He said: “The snow must have been six to eight inches deep, maybe more, and the drifts up the back of the house were about 3ft high.

“I don’t remember seeing any buses running and there was very little traffic on the roads. I didn’t go to work for a week.

“One of my colleagues was very keen and tried to drive to East Peckham from Larkfield but his car got stuck in the snow on Seven Mile Lane and a farmer had to pull it out using his tractor.

“I didn’t leave the house at all. My wife went to the shop in Willington Street but the rest of the time we stayed in and watched television or played cards.

“The lake at Mote Park froze and there was chaos in Maidstone as people tried to drive into town.

“Towards the end of the week shops were running out of things because the deliveries couldn’t get through.”

Lester Gosbee, Kent weather correspondent, remembers being trapped in what was then Pembury Hospital, near Tunbridge Wells, as west Kent ground to a halt. He said: “I had to stay in hospital as not even 4x4s could reach Frittenden. They suggested I could walk home but I wasn’t having that.

“I was there for a few days and after a while the hospital began running out of food because it couldn’t get deliveries in.”