Snowy days BEFORE we were wimps!
THE first snowflakes of winter 2017 had barely settled before Britain went into full meltdown this week.
As Storm Caroline cast a chilly pall over the UK, many schools locked their 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 — more than 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 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. Entire 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.
Shivers, Santas and sleepovers as the mercury plunges to -12
From Monday’s Mail