[West Ender]

Where I live we are just about at sea-level (just one lock on the Manchester Ship Canal between here and Liverpool) so if it snows it never lasts long. Even so, if we get an half an inch of snow and it freezes, Warrington, where I work, comes to a standstill. The swing-bridges over the Ship Canal always get stuck, usually half-way open.

In the late 1960s we lived in Whitby, N. Yorks, and we used to get cut-off from the outside world by snow for at least 5 days every Winter because all the roads out of Whitby are uphill. That could be great fun if the power-lines came down too and we had no electricity. I cooked quite a few meals on an oil-stove by candle-light.

I can remember the Winter of 1947, when the snow was deeper than my wellies and coal was rationed, and 1962/63 when I used to travel from Accrington to Bury by steam train - a journey that often took 3 hours in carriages that had no heating.

England has always been unprepared for Winter weather and never copes with it. In an age when we have instant communication with everywhere in the world and have had men on the moon, it's bizarre.