Past winters of discontent (From Stroud News and Journal)

Past winters of discontent

Last week's flurry of snow caused chaos in the Five Valleys and across the county. While younger people were shocked by the sight of stranded motorists, the older generation can remember far more severe conditions. Teenager Luke Warner looked back to when winters really were something to dread.

AS A 15-year-old I admit the winters I remember have only seen a centimetre or so of snow at the most and we might have got a day off school if the weather was particularly bad.

The worst saw my primary school close for two days because the head couldn't get in from Cheltenham. Pipes were frozen and roads icy. We weren't knee-deep in the white stuff, but we thought it was bad.

However, after speaking to older people like 90-year-old Les Pugh I realise I have never experienced harsh weather. Les, from Stonehouse, can rattle off a list of bad winters - 1927, 1929, 1939, 1940, 1947, and 1962.

"We had to cope with snow waist deep and higher," he explained. "The first winter I remember was 1929," he recalled.

"It was bitter and the canals froze. The ice was so thick a steam tug was used as an icebreaker."

In 1939, the first winter of the Second World War, the valleys endured the coldest conditions for more than 40 years, with temperatures plummeting to a biting -17C.

However, 1947 is the winter most remember, simply because they never thought spring would arrive.

"Even in early March there was still more than a foot of snow," Les explained. "The rain never stopped either and there was terrible flooding." The early 1960s saw villagers cut off because of snow.

"The blizzard of Boxing Day 1962 still causes me to shudder," said Les. "Several villages in high areas were left without electricity and gas."

I ask Les what he thought of last week - half knowing the reply I would get. "You youngsters have seen nothing compared to what my generation have known," he said. "Last week was nothing."

John Milsom, a 75-year-old grandfather from Lansdown, Stroud, also remembers that terrible winter of 1962. "I drove through the blizzard and I couldn't distinguish between the road and the top of the hedge the snow was so deep," he said.

His wife Edith helped rescue elderly folk trapped in their homes by snowdrifts.

Although winters made life hard, they also turned the Five Valleys into a beautiful frozen landscape.

As with so many things, Laurie Lee captures it best. In Cider with Rosie he vividly describes this 'crystal kingdom'.

"It was a world of glass, sparkling and motionless.

"Vapours had frozen all over the trees and transformed them into confections of sugar.

"Everything was rigid, locked-up and sealed, and when we breathed the air it smelt like needles and stabbed our nostrils and made us sneeze."