Some of our young people are half way through their degrees (2019/20 intake): lockdowns on repeat, light at the end of the tunnel with vaccinations (?) and the legacy of COVID-19

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

Previous thread

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose is all I can say!

[icanbewhatiwant]

@Itscoldouthere that's SO cold! 🥶

[bigTillyMint]

That’s cold @Itscoldouthere

I grew up with ice on the inside of the windows!

[Benjispruce2]

Coats on the beds at my Nan’s house! Billy Connolly’s ‘ eiderdown’ routine rings true

[Itscoldouthere]

@Benjispruce2 that made me laugh 😂

Oh how things have changed, thankfully!

[Itscoldouthere]

I’ve defiantly got the right username 😊 but I’ve had it for about 8 years so I obviously used to think the UK was cold too!

[Ginfordinner]

@bigTillyMint

That’s cold *@Itscoldouthere*

I grew up with ice on the inside of the windows!

Our first winter after getting married was very cold. We had temperatures going down to -15 in England, and our water froze for 10 days. Yorkshire Water had to put a standpipe up at the end of the street where the water hadn't frozen. We had no central heating, and woke up every morning to ice all the way up the inside of our bedroom window.

I used to go to bed in pyjamas, socks and sweatshirt. We also needed our electric blanket.

I never want to be that cold again.

Sorry, this is beginning to sound like the annual competitive mumsnet who can put up with the coldest weather

[Itscoldouthere]

@Ginfordinner that does sound horrible though, being cold inside is grim and your water supply freezing.
The difference here is it’s toasty warm inside, everything super insulated. So it’s only cold outside and everyone dresses correctly for the cold, you don’t see anyone without hat, gloves, scarf because they are used to it and it goes on for months, it’s also a dry cold.
Those cold snaps in the UK can take you off guard and you can find yourself outside not dressed properly and chilled to the bone, and that damp cold is just so horrible it can take hours to shake off.

[ZZTopGuitarSolo]

High of -6 and low of -11 here today which is fairly typical for winter.

When we bought our house it had no heating upstairs. I have no idea how the former owners coped.

We put in baseboard heaters upstairs and a wood stove downstairs but my kids still run heaters in their rooms while they’re doing online school.

[icanbewhatiwant]

Yes...we had ice on windows growing up too. We had one electric fire with the fake coal and a red light up bar thingy. No more heating anywhere else in the house.
So spoilt now...underfloor heating downstairs and a log fire in the living room. I'd freeze if I had to live in my childhood home again.

[simbobs]

In many countries in Northern Europe it is considered unhealthy to heat bedrooms. My parents never had heating in theirs, nor an electric blanket either. My dad would have considered that profligate!

[Stopyourhavering64]

Got to -20 when I was a student in Aberdeen in the 80's...no central heating and frost on inside of windows was a common experience!...my dcs just eyeroll at me when I mention this had to think of ways to keep warm with bf

[Ginfordinner]

We don't heat the house at night, but I don't like getting out of bed in a cold room.

[ZZTopGuitarSolo]

My house's former owners actually used two of the upstairs no-central-heating rooms for business - one was a therapy room and one was a studio for an architect.

I can only assume they had some kind of heating for when their clients were on site, because otherwise everyone would have left and not returned after their first visit.

[Xenia]

My parents put in central heating when I was about 5 in the 1960s. I remember it vaguely - it certainly made a difference to the house and no coal fires.

Now we don't have the heating on at night and I always sleep with the window open no matter what the weather but my house is warm, big house, big heating bills but warm in the day. I watched a video on youtube about the big freeze of 1963 recently - very interesting BBC programme made at that time and it also mentioned the 1940 winter that was so cold, when my mother was living at her teacher training college - that was a really cold winter. "THE frost which began on December 27, 1939, and continued with few intermissions until about February 18, 1940, was the most severe in Great Britain since 1895. December 1939 was cold on the whole, the average temperature of 37·8° F. at Kew being nearly 4° F."

Here is the 1963 summary

"The winter of 1962–63, known as the Big Freeze of 1963, was one of the coldest winters (defined as the months of December, January and February) on record in the United Kingdom. Temperatures plummeted and lakes and rivers began to freeze over. In the Central England Temperature (CET) record extending back to 1659, only the winters of 1683–84 and 1739–40 were colder than 1962–63. The winter of 1962–63 remains the coldest since at least 1895 in all meteorological districts of the United Kingdom except Scotland North, where the two winters of 1978–79 and 2009–10 were colder."

[Ginfordinner]

My mum could tow my sister and me all the way to the shops on the toboggan during the 1962/3 big freeze.

[bigTillyMint]

Before my time - just

[Ginfordinner]

I am ancient

[Benjispruce2]

1971 vintage here and I get the eye rolling teens when I mention the power cuts of the 70s.

[Ginfordinner]

I remember them very well, and the three day week.
I was reminded of it when binge watching The Crown the other day.

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

On the subject of no heat in bedrooms, slightly on a tangent, I always sleep with the big window open in the bedroom at night (otherwise I feel suffocated). Snuggled under the duvet I am always warm enough BUT this past week it's been a killer getting out of bed to close the window and put the heating on.

Our 'kittens' have never seen snow before - they don't know what to make of it this morning.

I read an article in The Times (or Sunday Times) last weekend with the granddaughter of Vita Sackville West - that was all about the big freeze of 1962/63 - imagine living through that. @Ginfordinner I suppose as a young child you won't have been aware that it was such a big deal?

[Ginfordinner]

I was only just 4 at the time. I remember going sledging in the park at the bottom of our road, but I wouldn't have been aware of the significance of it.

The winter of 1978/9 was pretty cold and snowy, so was 1981/2.

We had the Beast from the East return several times in 2018, followed by a glorious summer - a perfect summer following DD's A levels.

[Benjispruce2]

Snowing here too!
During the power cuts of the 70s, as a child I was just excited because the candles came out.

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

Our 'kittens' (well they're not anymore but not very adult yet) don't know what to make of the snow. Clearly, cats don't have some inherited collective memory of weather!

[MrKlaw]

looking outside seeing the neighbours kids playing in the snow reminded me of a couple of decent snowy days when my kids were younger. Some fab memories and photos of simple joy on faces making snowmen and throwing snow.

And here we are with at least some of them off at Uni using our money for pot noodles and Dominos :)

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

We didn't really get 2018 Beast from the East, so we were trying to remember when we did have the last really snowy weather here - maybe 2013 or earlier even?