The Great Snow of 1982
- The Time Chair
- Jul 15
- 8 min read
You’ve probably said it a few times yourself, something along the lines of, “It used to snow a lot more in the 1980s". Well, that’s because it did, and part of the reason for that was because there were more factories and coal fires back then meaning more particles in the air. You might recall your local skyline being adorned with far more brick chimneys and factories in your youth than it is now. Fine particles in the atmosphere make it easier for water vapour to precipitate, and if you have the right temperature for ice crystals to form, then you have a good chance of snow.
Now if, like me, you had parents or grandparents who had an open fire in the ‘70s or ‘80s, then you might also recall waiting excitedly for the coal delivery so that you could play on the small mountain of fuel the coal men would deliver in those huge hundredweight sacks. I didn’t realise it at the time, but those grimy-faced heroes who drank lots of milk were very tough and very important, because in the days before central heating and double-glazed windows, they could be the difference between life and death, particularly during the winter months.
“The Big Snow” as it became known in the press, was the result of a cold wave over the UK which formed in early December 1981 and would last until late January 1982. I was only about seven-years-old at the time, and like many other kids in the ‘70s and ‘80s wondered what all the fuss was about. It was mid-winter and it was snowing. Perfect! What was the problem?
Well, as we headed into January 1982 and were still putting our arms out like Superman to Buck Fizz's Land of Make Believe, in addition to the heavy snowfall, temperatures across the UK began to plummet and continued to do so with some places reaching as low as -27°C. At such low temperatures, a peculiar silence ensues throughout nature. Nothing moves and the air becomes dense. Add to this a reduction in echoes because ordinarily flat surfaces are covered in snow, and the world becomes an eerier place. The problem was abundantly clear.
We were only a couple of weeks into the new year and the country had been brought to a standstill by snowdrifts ranging from 1 to 10-feet in depth. Police, fire and ambulance services became stranded and the army was mobilised to help dig them out. There were widespread electricity outages and reports of fires caused by back boilers exploding because the water in them had frozen. Our back boiler was a mysterious device hidden in a secret cavity in the wall above the gas fire. I didn't know much about it except that it had something to do with a 'pilot light' and me being shouted at if I used too much hot water on bath night.
As The Great Snow progressed, food deliveries couldn’t get through to stores, and a lot of people were literally snowed in meaning that the only way they could access or leave their homes was via a window, which sounds great if you're a seven-year-old, but for anyone over forty; not so much.
For some bizarre reason, as a child I loved weather extremes. Whenever it rained heavily, I would sit in my dad's van and listen to the raindrops bouncing off its metallic roof. It would give me goosebumps and put me into a kind of trance. In the winter, I didn’t want it to be just a little cold and windy, I wanted -20°C and 60 mph gusts. The impact that such numbers could have on the elderly and national infrastructure never crossed my mind. All I saw was an opportunity for adventure. But when such extremes did occur and lasted for more than a few days like they did in 1982, the exuberance of youth waned quickly. When the clothes you were wearing on Monday hadn’t dried out by Tuesday because there was no heating in the house, thoughts of adventure quickly turned to those of survival because the clothing supply of a 1970s and 80s child was far less-plentiful than today's comparative walk-in wardrobes.
When we look back on our childhood as adults, we do so with the hindsight of a few decades of experience. It couldn’t have been that bad, surely? After all, we’re still here aren’t we? Well, in 1982, the absence of central heating, instant hot water and double-glazed windows didn’t signify quaintness or a day out at an English Heritage site. It meant ice on the inside of your bedroom window during winter and getting dressed for school whilst still beneath your bed covers, your condensed breath clearly visible throughout the struggle. A face would take (on average) about four minutes to defrost following eight hours’ exposure to the elements of a 1980s bedroom in mid-winter.
It meant moving a portable gas heater between bedrooms throughout the night, and ensuring that only one flame block was lit (not three) so that the bottled-gas supply would last as long as possible. It meant getting down stairs in the morning before the rest of your siblings to claim optimum position in front of the fire, as well as the warmest piece of toast from the top of the butter-clad stack. Fame, fortune and popularity didn’t come into it. Such folly was meaningless in comparison to keeping hunger at bay, repairing a hole in the roof, or the car starting in the morning. 1980s cars and cold weather did not cooperate particularly well. I was often woken up early in the morning by the sound of engines struggling to get started. I was told that it was because of something called a 'choke' and the direction of the wind? When one of the cars in the road did eventually cough into action, there would be a collective cheer and the successful would-be mechanic would then drive up and down the street to help jump-start the more-stubborn vehicles.
I recall activating three contingencies during the Great Snow of 1982. In the event of extremely cold weather, as in the type where the tip of your nose physically hurts, the first objective was to protect the extremities; the fingers and toes. If you ever forgot your gloves or didn’t own any, then the best you could do was put your hands in your pockets. If you didn’t have pockets, then you would literally put your fingers in your mouth. I did have a pair of gloves, but they were made of wool which meant there were large gaps between the knit and they weren’t water proof. Footwear at the time wasn’t much better, and the only time mine didn’t have at least one hole in them was on the day of purchase, even if they were 'Leather-Uppers'.
The contingencies were crude, but they worked. In the absence of gloves, school socks would be worn over the hands forming makeshift mittens. Dexterity was limited, but provided you didn’t scoop up too much snow, the hands would stay tolerably warm for a short time. As for the feet, tin foil would be moulded around the front half of each foot over the top of the sock and act as an insulator for the toes. Some people did take to wearing plastic bags over their shoes in regions where the snow was particularly deep, although where I was, only about a foot or two had fallen.
The next contingency was the rearrangement of the living room furniture. When the winter months took hold, the sofa would be dragged from its usual position up against the wall into the centre of the room closer to the fire. Any changes in the arrangement of furniture was always exciting for some reason. The repositioning of the sofa meant that there was a play space formed behind it, and a far more cosy space in front of it. There was a downside to it though. In the ‘80s, I tended to spend a lot of the time lying on the floor watching the television, but when the sofa was moved this became undoable. Mum and Dad kept banging on about something called 'Chilblains', so I couldn't lie too close to the fire.
We also had what was arguably one of the angriest dogs nature has ever produced, a Jack Russell cross breed with long legs which became even angrier following the room change. You would have to literally fight it if you wanted a spot on the sofa. On the plus side, the cold draft that would usually come under the living room door was mitigated, even if it did mean four people squeezing onto a three-seater couch. I did fashion a makeshift draft excluder a couple of times using a pair of my mum's tights and scrunched up newspaper, but with huge single-glazed windows and uninsulated walls to contend with, this was like helping clear up the aftermath of an earthquake with a dustpan and brush.
The third contingency was for bedtime. Before the days of duvets and quilts we had bed covers, which made sense from a physics point of view. More covers meant more air trapped between each layer, which was kind of like the thinking behind school vests. I remember arranging the covers in a specific way to mimic the den of an animal about to go into hibernation, or a fox sheltering in a wintry landscape. As a child, the space beneath the bed covers seemed like a cave. Sometimes I'd get a short stick and wedge it between the mattress and the covers creating a makeshift tent, and so long as my face wasn’t exposed at the moment I fell asleep, I knew it wouldn’t be too bad come morning.
At the peak of The Great Snow I was given the task of clearing the snow from the pavement outside the house. I also had to help my nan who lived in the same road as we did. This included getting her coal fire started in the morning and shovelling the ash out from beneath it and putting it in the metal bin only. This was how I learned how to get a coal fire started. The trick was to place a sheet of newspaper over the opening to concentrate the flow of the oxygen to the flames. It was dangerous, but it worked.
Were it not for my young age at the time, I would probably have less-fond memories of The Great Snow. A lot of people ended up needing to be airlifted to hospital due to the roads being blocked, and some schools were closed for up to two weeks. The snow was different from the type we were used to in the UK. It was the powdery kind and accompanied by gale force Easterly winds resulting in huge drifts. It would be another 11-months until the film, The Snowman would first air on Channel 4, so the idyllic romanticism of winter's gown of white would have to wait for a bit whilst dad smashed through the 2-inch-thick ice which had formed across the header water tank in the loft.
As adults, we sometimes romanticise about living in a secluded cottage somewhere in the countryside, with a lazy river running past the end of the garden and a mangle to press our bed sheets and tablecloths. But such visions are often comprised of the delicacies of nature, of spring flowers and clement weather. The reality is somewhat more brutal when events such as The Great Snow occur and serves as a reminder that irrespective of how advanced and civilised we may think we are, nature can knock us down a peg or two in as little as a few days.
Do you have any memories of The Great Snow of 1982, or of winter in general back then?
Comments