1940s: 60 years since misery of the 47 big freeze

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As British winters appear to be getting milder due to the effect of global warming, Harold Richardson recalls the worst winter in living memory to hit this country – exactly 60 years ago. Britain still reeling from the effects of the Second World War found itself plunged into a 1940s ice-age which had almost as devastating an effect as the Blitzkreig.

At the end of six long and bitter years of war, a weary and battered Britain replaced uniforms with demob suits and looked towards a period of convalescence before tackling the rebuilding of three million war-damaged homes and the regeneration of her worn-out factories.

On January 1, 1947, the new Labour Government brought into being the National Coal Board with the nationalisation of the mines and in the wake of reorganisation came a drop in coal production.

On January 6, the country awoke to an all-night blizzard that had covered most of the country in eight inches of snow and was the beginning of a three-month winter ordeal unknown in living memory.

To add to the ills of a country already bowed under with tremendous difficulties, including a transport strike affecting food and fuel supplies, continuing heavy snowfalls had a more demoralising effect than had the worst nights of the Blitzkrieg.

What road and rail traffic was on the move came to a stop, defeated by snowdrifts as deep as 20ft, burying the snowploughs sent out to give battle.

German prisoners of war were recruited to keep open the road between Derby and Ashbourne but time after time drifting snow reclosed it.

Few coal deliveries got through to homes whose only source of heating was the open fire. The miseries of the wartime blackout returned to many parts of the country as power lines broke under the weight of snow. The Central Electricity Board gave out warnings of further and more severe cuts as coal stocks were used up.

With “Britain in the dark”, as one headline put it, the situation at Derby Power Station was described as “chaotic”, with power supplies for only five hours a day bringing the trolley buses to a stop.

The Evening Telegraph reported on February 12 that 8,000 Rolls-Royce workers would be given notice and British Celanese would close on February 14.

The RAF had to make food drops to outlying villages. Among those cut off were Butterton, Alstonefield, Thorpe and Longford. It was on one of those mercy flights, on February 13, that an RAF Halifax crashed at Mount Pleasant on Grindlow Moor, killing the crew and two press photographers who were on board.

Villagers at Thorpe began to cut a way through to Ashbourne as bread and milk supplies ran out. Only a few completed the four-mile journey, which took many hours.

Despite the bitter cold, Shrovetide football went ahead at Ashbourne; and, as a way of more light relief, Alvaston lake and the Mundy paddling pools were opened for skating.

As more roads became impassable, more cuts were made in the bread allowance, which had remained unrationed throughout the war.

A desperate Cabinet met to discuss all sorts of measures to break the stranglehold of snow, including the use of flame-throwers.

In the middle of February a slight thaw brought a brief respite, allowing supplies of fuel to get through, but by February 23 temperatures again plummeted to the lowest recorded in 50 years.

At Chaddesden, a double-decker bus skidded on the glacier-like road, overturning and injuring six passengers.

Towards the end of February and beginning of March spirits were again uplifted by the start of another thaw, but this was also short-lived and the blizzards returned.

A week later, an exhausted country had new hazards to face – fog and frosts. Then came the final thaw and this continued at such a pace that the rivers Trent, Derwent and Soar overflowed. Floodwaters reached factories that had only recently started up, while many roads again became impassable.

The Trent swept away the Cavendish bridge at Shardlow, and the Derwent put paid to that on Raynesway. It was many weeks before repairs could be completed.

The Cavendish bridge was replaced by a wartime Bailey bridge and this stayed in place for many years before a new permanent bridge could be built.

The final act of this devastating winter came on the night of March 16 when a hurricane hit the country. Many were killed, one of the fatalities being at Chellaston caused by a falling tree.

The summer to come would prove to be one of the finest on record.

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