‘A damn sight thicker snow when I was a child ... they didn’t close schools either’
The Sentinel’s NOSTALGIA PAGE has prompted scores of readers to share their memories. Here are just a few of them...
SNOW IN NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE
“I can remember the snowdrifts of yesteryear, especially up our back door. Dad would go out and shift it many a time early mornings. I can hear him now with his handmade shoveller while me and my sister were still tucked up in bed. He’d always have his mug of tea and a bit of whisky in to warm him up after.” Penelope Smith
“Walking to school with snow piled high either side the pavement – so high I couldn’t see over it. Also we had to keep a shovel inside the house to dig ourselves out. This was in Trent Vale. I loved making slides, then went inside freezing cold to a roaring fire.” Chris Talbot
“A damn sight thicker snow when I was a child, and they didn’t close schools either. You don’t realise how bad it was then until you’re all snuggled up in your home with the central heating on, but they were fun days. It’s hard to explain to the generation of today, they just look at you as if you’re stupid. What great memories, what great times.” Sharron Jones
“In the 60s I had to walk to school in Stoke from Trentham when the snow was heavy and piled up and the buses couldn’t get through. I haven’t seen anything that bad since the winter of 1976/77 when it took me nine hours to drive from Hanley centre to Yarnfield when we were all sent off duty from the GPO building in Stafford Street. Two hours in a car just to get from there to Lichfield Street by the public baths.” Shelagh Allen
“I remember in the 1960s I worked in Burslem at Johnson Matthey. The snowdrifts were so high they took all the buses off, so I had to walk all the way home to Fegg Hayes.” Carol Britland
“I remember living in a terrace house without central heating and the ice was on the inside of my window. That’s how cold it was.” Teresa Angotti
“Sledging down Woodberry Avenue from the fields – it was ace.” Doreen Colerick “Making snow barricades to see who could them down first with snowballs. Great fun.” Kathleen Nixon
“I remember in the 1960s Kidsgrove Bank was always cut off when we had heavy snow. “As a lad of 13 I remember the local newsagent Reg Scott often slept in his shop because he couldn’t go home.” Tony Smith
“Sliding down Penkhull Bank from Thistley Hough to get the bus home to Abbey Hulton from Stoke, holding on to the lampposts, and then having to walk the last half mile because the bus couldn’t get any further. All in just my blazer. School wasn’t closed in the 1960s.” Erika Smith
“I remember walking to work in Hanley through thick snow. When I got there all the insulated ceiling tiles had caved in and loads of snow had fallen behind the shop counter.” Jancis Day
“I remember walkng to North Road school in Burslem in around 1946. It was like walking in a tunnel, snow piled so high on Waterloo Road.” Pamela Roberts