Late in the
Autumn of 1946 the weather was quite wet and there was a great deal of
flooding. It was not a good period for
the weather to give us a hard time, things were bad enough already.
Going into
January 1947, as the month went on we all thought the winter would soon be
over. But then there were a few wisps of snow.
The street know-all told us it would soon melt and be gone so we did not
worry.
Then there was
more snow and then quite suddenly a lot.
It was serious. The rationing did
not give us much to eat but it became difficult to get even that. The railways were brought to a juddering halt
and there was little or no road transport to carry the goods.
The power went
off and more or less stayed off. This
was made worse by many of the newly nationalised miners preferring to stay at
home. And the snow kept coming right
into March and it was only later that month that it began to go, rapidly.
Which meant we
had all the flooding again.
I don't think we'll be any better prepared if it happens again.
ReplyDeleteHave never forgotton that Winter. Re the cold, Mum and I slept in the sitting room where there was an open fire behind a strong fireguard. Dad wasn't yet back from active service. Mum lined my winter coat with strong brown paper inside, and my pixie hat and mittens were lined with layers of old vests. The dreadful East Coast storm surge when so many died, was to come in 1953. Other floodings in other areas of the U.K. have come since. It is worse now because much more land is covered over, and there are too many people. For my grandchildrens sake I hope someone will mandate "no more than 3 babies" - worldwide. The only other answer will be wars. There won't be space to grow crops.
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