[Devongone]

I started school before I was 4.

I left school at 18.

I was 10 during the winter of 1962 when there was snow on the ground for months.

Winters were much more severe when I was young than now. We didn't have double glazing and I often woke up to fronds of frost patterning inside and out of my bedroom window.

Yet never in all that school time was my school closed for the weather. When I was at grammar school and it was three miles away across town and the buses stopped running you just walked to school. When I was at junior school and the heating broke down we just wore our coats and anything else we'd got. You didn't get a day off. Never as in zero times.

Christ, now I switch on the news and I feel like my own grandad, or Charles Dickens, whose first eight Christmases were white. I'm shouting, "Open the school, it's miles more fun if it snows." But somebody might throw a snowball, oh no the equivalent of a North Korean missile test over the Sea of Japan. Let's sever all transport links now.

Am I the only one who remembers slides on the pavement? Sometimes you could get them really long and they'd last until some busybody came out and gave you a lecture about old people and poured salt on a great day.

Teachers, it's your job to walk into school. Get that heating on and don't go clearing the playground or cancelling playtime. And you might give some thought to the learning opportunities in a single snowflake.

[Amelia Chaffinch]

You aren't wrong. I have walked to school with the snow nearly up to my knees in places. We certainly don't seem to have drifting as we once did.

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https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/01/14/...newcastle/

[Lord Snooty]

Aw man. Pavement slides were brilliant.

[Devongone]

Yes, pavement slides should have been recognised as a sport!

Snow going over the top of your wellies, then your mum would make you warm your frozen wet toes in front of the fire .......

In 1962 we used to walk the long way home from school via this hill on a bit of waste ground between Kendal Road and Rydal Crescent that the kids had worn into an ice sheet. You could stand at the top and the slope would just take down in the most brilliant slide ever. What a lovely winter.

[spireitematt]

When I was at high school I only remember it being shut about 2-3 times when it snowed over 5 years and it snows pretty bad where I live. Think the school shut for the teachers though as I remember some teachers came from Sheffield, one from Huddersfield, Chesterfield and Manchester way.

Also find it daft how London and the South get a bit of snow and its becomes news worthy and they go into panic, bet the shops ran out of bread and milk down there. Don't understand how when it snows the country goes into panic and meltdown, we fought wars in the snow.

[ritchiebaby]

When I were a lad it wasn't cold unless the hairs on the inside of your nose started to freeze and the brass monkeys stayed inside. And the inside windowsills were covered in water after a thaw.  

Even in 9 inches of snow, I used to go away in the car to get to a dance or the pictures. Well, my girlfriend thought it was 9 inches!    

In 62/63 when we got to school in the bus, the drifts were higher than the bus. Good job it wasn't a double decker - other bars are available!

Ahh, the good old days. Character building.  

[hibeejim21]

Scotland does a special brand of cold and snow.

[St Charles Owl]

Scotland does a special brand of cold and snow.

I used to think that until I moved to Chicago, the weather they get in the northern plain states over here truly is a special brand!!! Aside from getting about 4-5ft of snow every winter and sometimes up to 7ft, its not the snow that will kill you, its the temperatures!! In January, the daily high temperature will not get above freezing at all and it will drop as low as -35 degrees C with wind chills making that feel as low as -60 degrees C!!! Having said all that due to the number of snowploughs and snow removal experience the cities have it is rare to find any real problems on the roads once the snow has stopped. Schools there will end up having about 3 or 4 snow days per year but they are usually due to the extreme cold rather than the snow itself.

Winter in Chicago is a fascinating thing when you first experience it but after 12 years of "suffering" them I am so glad we made the decision to move to LA, yesterday it was 27 degrees C here!!!!!!

[hibeejim21]

Yeah, i got some relatives in wisconsin. It looks mental in the winter!

[Devongone]

Now I live in Totnes in Devon, five miles away on Dartmoor they'll have snow, Haldon Hill near Exeter will be blocked, but here we've had one fall in ten years. Rain I can't stand in me old age, but snow I'd still be out in it.

In America I was amazed to find I loved New York. I'd love to be in Manhattan in the snow, but I've only been there in the spring. I loved the Carolinas too and Savannah, Georgia ....... well it'd never snow, but it's so piss elegant.