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1947 The beginning of 1947 saw the worst snow storms and blizzards the area had seen for a long time, the village was cut off from the outside world for nearly ten days. I remember the second day of snow fall dad sent Ted Eady with the van to pick me up from school in Raunds. It had was snowing heavily and dad had put chains on the wheels for traction. We were on our way home when Ted was waved down by the driver of a vehicle that had become stuck in the snow. He had slid off the road and couldn't get a grip to get back on again. Fortunately Ted had put a couple of shovels in the van before he left the village and we dug him out. Being good Samaritans we followed him to Stanwick just to make sure he got home safely.
We did our Samaritan act another couple of times and found ourselves in Irthlingborough where we became stuck and ran out of petrol. We had to enlist the aid of a farmer to borrow petrol and tow us out with his tractor, he wasn't very pleased at having to give us fuel because it was still strictly rationed. However he did on the proviso we get dad to pay him back in kind, which he did. We didn't get home until after 10.00 pm. having to drive slowly because visibility was so poor, and it was dark. Dad was furious, worried, but thankful that nothing had happened to us. It was another week before we were able to use the van again because of the snow.
The next morning when dad got up to work in the bakehouse he went to go outside from the back door of the kitchen, but when he opened the door he was met with a solid wall of snow right up to the top of the doorway. Not being able to get out this door he went to the back door of the bakehouse, and when he opened the door he found the snow halfway up the doorway. During the night there had apparently been a strong wind which had blown the snow against the house, somehow he managed to get out and dug the snow away from the bakehouse door. When my grandfather got up he had the task of digging a pathway from the bakehouse back to the kitchen back door, creating enough space so that we could get out and get water from the village pump.
I was told that the snow was too deep for me to go to school but when I saw Bernard Dunn (my teacher) walk past the window, I said to my mother "if he can walk to school so can I". Off I went and caught him up just before Victoria (Pretoria) Cottages, we were almost to the Bettles house when we came to a gap in the snow and realized we had been walking on top of the hedge on the right hand side of the road and what we had come across was the top of a five barred gate into the field.
Dad couldn't get out of the village to deliver bread to his customers, so he enlisted the help of Alf Carr who had the only crawler tractor in the village. He had contacted his customers and told them to get to a certain place where Alf Carr would have their bread for them. How long it took Alf to get to the drop off point and home again I don't know. It was the strangest sight to see this crawler tractor towing a small trailer behind loaded with bread, which was under cover. As far as I recall this was done on three occasions.
All the kids of the village had a ball during this period, sledging down the bank outside the bakehouse. It was amazing how much speed you could get up on the back of an old wooden chair or two pieces of wood nailed together as runners with a cross boards, one to put your feet on at the front, and the other towards the back to sit on, with two pieces of rope to cling onto. As kids we were quite adept at creating something out of nothing. Naturally there were always tumbles, but I don't recall anybody getting seriously hurt.
It was well over a week before the snow stopped falling and started to melt, when the melt did finally start it was a right mess on the roads. The brook flooded and raged like a torrent across the back of the garden and down Water Lane which became impassable at the fords for about five days. It was an experience I hope I never have to go through again. On a couple of mornings the village pump and the standpipe/faucet froze and I was sent out with hot water to melt the ice so that they could be used. |
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The snow of 1947 |
