The Winter of 1947 remains epic among British winters! An Internet search will provide many photographs and detailed accounts. My sister and I had started Coalbrookdale Grammar School in September 1946. Sue would be 12 years old that November and I had had my tenth birthday in June and was small for my age. Such were the vagaries of the entrance examination rules which allowed every child two attempts to pass to Grammar School.
We were the first cohort of the new system. Prior to 1946, there were scholarships available, but it was also possible to pay for a Grammar School education regardless of academic ability. The sudden closure of this option created enormous stress for children of families who had traditionally paid to send their children to Grammar School whether or not they obtained a scholarship.
We joined the new entry level classes of 1A and 1B. There were thirty-one students in each class, the largest one-year intake in the school’s history. My brother was already in the 5th form which meant that for one year we were all in the same school. Little did we realise how important that fact would prove for our survival that winter!
January 1947 was very cold with many frosty days and nights, but no one was prepared for the snowstorm of January 22/23. We had caught the train as usual that morning with light snow falling. By lunchtime there was already a significant accumulation and the snow and wind was increasing.
The older boys went to see the headmaster to ask if we could be sent home early on the 1 pm train as they feared the line would soon be blocked with snow-drifts. Mr. Herring hooted with laughter at the very thought that tough ‘country’ kids were trying to get out of school early for ‘a bit of snow’.
The snow continued to fall heavily all afternoon. At 3.15pm when school finished, we all ploughed our way up to the station which was about a half mile from the school. The station master greeted us with the news that the 3.30pm train had not yet left Wellington and we were in for a long wait!
This news was followed about 15 minutes later with the announcement that all trains were cancelled until further notice as drifts covered portions of the track! Men were being sent with shovels to clear the track and, since it was still snowing hard, it was going to be a long job. In fact, it was likely there would be no more trains that day!
Thirty plus children crammed into the small waiting room as we waited for the oldest boys to map out a plan. Obviously, we would have to walk the 5 ½ miles (9 ½ K) home to Wenlock. Those who lived further on up the line could stay with friends in Wenlock overnight.
Fortunately, most of us had been sent to school in wellington boots with our mandatory leather lace-up Clark’s shoes in our heavy leather satchels. Our school uniform dictated that all the girls wore navy gymslips and knickers, white blouses and navy wool sweaters. The boys wore school blazers over their sweaters with short grey pants until Senior school when long grey flannel trousers were allowed. We all had knitted woollen knee-high socks held up with elastic bands and a navy gabardine mackintosh and school hat – caps for the boys and berets for the girls. School blazers and long navy school scarves complete with tassels and bands of green and white, completed our uniform. In those days, bare knees were a way of life for all of us!
At this point it is worth remembering that we had grown up in a world where houses were heated only by coal fires and, since the coal ration was only a hundredweight (112 lbs or about 50 Kilograms) per week, these fires were generally only lit in the evening. Regulations ruled that school heating could only be turned on from November to March. However bad the weather at least one window was always open in our classroom and even our homes. Everyone wore a wool vest and all the girls and even some women wore a ‘liberty bodice’. This was a bulky padded garment which provided a great deal of warmth. The optimum temperature for schools was I believe 61F/16C but with constantly opening doors, draughts etc. the only really warm place in school was right beside one of the radiators.
The snow continued to fall heavily as we formed a long crocodile behind the largest boys and started our long trek home. Although we would be following the main road there was no expectation that we would meet any traffic! Certainly, there was no road clearance of any kind and I do not remember meeting a single vehicle!
Since my sister and I were the smallest we were at the very back of the line and walked a well stamped out path through the deep snow which was already severely drifted between the steep hedgerows. Our big brother had taken our heavy satchels and he walked the whole distance with three satchels slung across his back. The other older boys followed suit divesting the smallest children of their load.
We left the station about 4pm, first walking down past the school, (now firmly shut for the night) then on to join the Buildwas road. The first mile or so follows the river and is fairly level. But once we turned left across the river bridge, we faced an uphill climb of about 440ft /133m over a 4 mile stretch as the road climbs up Farley Dingle.
Just past the bridge is the lane to Buildwas station. Here we stopped to wait the outcome of an argument for heading to the station, about half a mile walk, or continuing towards Wenlock. In the end, only two girls decided they would go to the station. I did not envy them! No big boys would break track for them and perhaps they would be stuck there all night! The rest of us were going home, however long that took!
And so we plodded on once more! My world was reduced to my sister in front of me and the snowy walls on either side. Steadily we trudged onwards and upwards through Farley Dingle. Farley Train Halt was deserted. No railway lines were visible through their thick snowy layer.
Eventually we reached the turn to Homer and Wigwig. It would be all downhill from here. Waving goodbye to the kids who faced another two-mile downhill walk to Wigwig we started down into Wenlock. We created quite a sensation when we reached the first houses at the Crescent and children started dropping out of line as they were welcomed home and hurried into the warmth. Poor Mrs Corbett was horrified to hear that José and her friend had turned toward Buildwas station!
At last it was our turn! We lived at 1 Sheinton St. (the Brook House Farm) and arrived home to a cold and empty house. Our mother was stuck somewhere unable to get home from her teaching job in Broseley as all the buses were cancelled. But we had made it! We were home!
Bryan set a match to the living room fire and then lit the paraffin space heater at the back of the room. Fortunately, we had a gas stove for cooking and were soon wrapped in blankets around our small fire, nursing steaming bowls of bread and milk.
The snow continued to fall steadily, and I think it must have been about 7.30pm when an icy blast from the front door heralded Mum’s arrival! She already knew something of our adventures as José and her friend had eventually made it to Buildwas station. Our Mother was among the crowd of commuters from the Severn Valley line who packed the small Waiting Room hoping that a train to Wenlock would eventually get through!
Mum had experienced her own adventures. She had walked from Broseley down to Ironbridge station (via Broseley Wood and the Iron Bridge) and caught a train to Buildwas where she had been stuck until at last one train made it as far as Wenlock!
The next day was Friday and we all had a day off school. Most of the outlying villages around Wenlock were cut off and the news bore the grim stories of a country brought to a standstill by the continuing heavy snowfalls. We missed a lot of school that winter due to either the weather or ‘the flu’.
Most days our mid-morning bottle of milk (free to all school children) arrived at our desk with the foil cap perched on top of a column of frozen cream. We had two choices – use the foil cap as a spoon to scoop off the ‘ice cream’ or wait until it softened sufficiently to push a straw into the bottle itself and drink the milk below. Eventually the cream would soften and sink and could be stirred into the remaining milk thus creating a kind of sludge which could be drunk from the bottle.
Men dug a tunnel through the lane to Callaughton, a small village two or three miles outside Wenlock. Callaughton was only reached via ancient sunken lanes which had quickly filled with drifts. Between over six-foot-high walls of snow the tunnel was just wide enough for two people to pass. I remember one brilliantly sunny, bitingly cold Sunday afternoon when we walked almost all the way to Callaughton and back just to experience such a unique phenomenon!
Sledges were dragged from barn lofts and saw sterling service on the Walton Hills. Uncle George had two sleds, The Flying Scotsman carried four passengers and we kids put it to good use! The other sled was reserved for adults. It was wide enough for two to sit abreast and carried six. Amazingly it also had a brake!
By March we were all used to the continuous snowstorms and it seemed almost a surprise when warmer air suddenly arrived, and all those mountains of snow began to shrink. Travelling home from school that day all the talk was of the likelihood of getting in one more weekend of sledding.
Imagine a chattering group of children coming down Station Drive to Sheinton street only to find that street had become a torrent of water hissing and bubbling its way down into town. Even the pavement (sidewalk) was flooded and only the uneven state of the road allowed us to wade along the edges!
We knew only too well what we would find at the Brook House! The floor of our house was about 6 inches lower than the pavement and, when street flooding occurred, water poured into our house. Such flooding had happened so often that flanges either side of the front door frame had been constructed to hold a barrier board to try to reduce the water flowing in under our front door.
When we arrived home the water already several inches deep in our hall and dining-room. Our oval drop leaf dining-table was fully extended and the two armchairs and the carpet were piled on top! The back-kitchen floor drains were securely blocked with bricks holding down thick pads of old towels. These were necessary since our old house was built almost over the brook and when the latter was in flood such drains could quickly transform into smelly water spouts. Grandad Yates had anticipated the flood and sent men down to take the usual precautions!
We too knew the drill! When we arrived home the water had receded sufficiently to stop pouring in from the street. Bur the water in the hall was level with the top of the step. Wading through the mess we parked our coats and satchels on the staircase and gathered the galvanised hand-basins from the back kitchen.
With three kids taking turns bail out mucky flood water over the barrier board we managed to get the level down to the ‘mopping stage’ by the time Mum arrived home an hour and a half later!
But I still remember the steamy stench that seemed to permeate the whole house for several days. We left the Brook House at the end of March that year. The old house certainly gave us a memorable and rather smelly send-off!