If you’ve been dreaming of a white Christmas for decades, then you’re not alone!

Sadly outside of a Wham video things are usually dreary, dull, and dismal as opposed to hard, crisp, and even when December 25 finally rolls around.

In fact, the whole of winter these days is something of a washout as opposed to a whiteout! Particularly when compared with the fierce and unforgiving winters of yesteryear.

Yet as Michael J Fox might have once said, “The past is a different country. They do things differently there. Including the weather.”

“Where is our blazing blizzard, our blanket of white, our pale shin rising over a frozen and still landscape,” said one old man with his dog whilst looking wistfully at the lack of snow in Castle Meadows on the weekend,

Before adding scornfully, “Bahh! Today’s snowflakes are a poor shower indeed.”

For want of anything better to do, let’s rewind the clock to a distant winter of such frozen ferocity, demonic drifts, and blitzkrieg blizzards, that this island of ours has seen nothing quite like it since.

The year was 1947 and it boasted a winter that made more recent flurries of flakes seem like nothing more than a light dusting.

For the first few months of 1947, most of the British Isles experienced record-low temperatures and persistent snow cover.

Large drifts of snow caused blockages on both roads and railways.

Coal supplies, already low following the Second World War, struggled to get through to power stations, and many stations were forced to shut down because of the lack of fuel.

Llanfoist man George Alsop who was working at the Ebbw Vale steelworks in 1947 told the Chronicle in 2010, “I remember there was a severe frost and regular snowfalls since the last week in January, hampering all operations both in the Works and on the railways and main highways.

“The culmination of this period took the form of a snow blizzard commencing on Tuesday, March 4, and not easing until 36 hours later - at 2 am on Thursday, March 6.

“This period presented the greatest problem we had been called upon to face. Within 24 hours the Works was covered with a minimum of two feet of snow, mounting in drifts in places to well over the height of a truck.

“The few men that were able to get to work did so with the greatest difficulty, and most people found themselves isolated and not able to get to the job.”

By the end of the blizzard, all blast furnaces at the Works had been shut down.

George told the Chronicle, “I remember at the time there was trouble in Ebbw Vale regarding a shortage of food. It was reported to the Works that there was a food train snowbound on the line about five or six miles from Ebbw Vale.

“Because the Works had an improvised snow plough on one of their locomotives, they offered the Great Western Railway company use of this snow plough to rescue the food train.

“Together with a second locomotive, a van, 50 men and shovels, and four boilermakers in case anything went wrong with the plough, we brought the food train into town on Saturday, March 8, which was the first train in since Tuesday, March 4.”

George added, “That winter was definitely the worst one I can remember and it made the snow we had since seem like nothing in comparison.”

During 1947 The government introduced several measures to cut power consumption including restricting domestic electricity to 19 hours per day and cutting industrial supplies completely.

In addition, radio broadcasts were limited, television services were suspended, some magazines were ordered to stop being published and newspapers were cut in size. These measures badly affected public morale and turned the Minister of Fuel and Power, Emanuel Shinwell, into a scapegoat; he received death threats and had to be placed under police guard.

Towards the end of February, there were also fears of a food shortage as supplies were cut off and vegetables frozen rock solid.

Lilyrose Blewett from The Bryn in Penpergwm recalled when the leeks were frozen in the ground. “I remember there was terrible trouble and they had to use a drill to get them out. They were so hard to come by they were charging people £1, and that was just for one.“

“We all thought that winter would just never end. The trains were down and it was just nonstop.”

Grosmont lady Mrs Shelia Parry, who was only a young girl in 1947 told the Chronicle in 2018, “I remember that particular winter being away from school for some four to five weeks. 

“When school did resume, my brother and I had to walk down a very narrow country lane, which needless to say was blocked full of snow drifts.

“We would continue our journey to school across the fields down into the dingle and cross the brook, and then walk up another field and through the churchyard to our school at Llangattock Lingoed.

“There were not many tractors around in those days and we certainly would not have seen a snow plough, so our lanes stayed blocked for many weeks.

Mrs Parry added, “I also remember going with my father on horseback to a nearby farm for a 'tiddler' lamb to foster on to a ewe which had lost her lamb.

“We travelled over the top of the hedges and across the fields as it was not possible to travel on the lanes because they were full of snow drifts.

“I remember the snow was over the top of the first-floor windows at our farmhouse and the bedroom windows were covered with the wonderful designs that a hard frost makes.

“There was no double glazing in those days and no central heating, just a huge log and coal fire in the old black lead kitchen range with a water boiler on the side of the grate.”

Of course, it wasn’t just the winter of 1947 that was notoriously severe. 1982 and 1963 were pretty bad as well. Here’s how the Chronicle reported it.

Farmers throughout Wales faced the most serious crisis to hit agricultural life in years during 1982.

The ravages of the worst winter in living memory left the farming community bruised, battered, and broken.

In January of that year, losses of livestock and crops were running at record high levels.

Many farmers were financially ruined by six weeks of the worst weather they ever had to face. All over the county, there was no respite from the continued snow and frost and the even longer search for missing livestock.

The county secretary of the National Farmers Union said at the time, “The weather has been catastrophic to the whole county.

“The already dire situation could see farming in the area grinding to a halt.

“Abergavenny farmers in particular are badly affected. There are continuing difficulties with milk distribution and with the availability of green vegetables.

“There is likely to be a critical shortage unless crops buried under heaps of snow can be reached soon.”

He added, “The community is faced with heavy losses of sheep. With figures showing that 25 percent of all sheep in the Abergavenny area are still unaccounted for.

“Although sheep can survive under the snow for about a week, a large proportion of them have already been written off as dead.”

Llanfoist garage owner Mr. Phillip Caswell had special problems during the big freeze of 1982 when the diesel in his pumps froze.

With temperatures in the village going as low as minus 21 degrees, diesel fuel at the garage simply crystallized and turned into a wax-like substance.

Local councils were faced with a vast bill for repairs to roads damaged by the snow and ice, and worked around the clock to cope with the huge amount of burst pipes.

And because of the number of bursts, the Welsh Water Authority warned consumers that if they did not reduce consumption there could be a shortage.

The bad weather also brought fixture chaos to local sports clubs with the Abergavenny Thursdays playing only one game in two months.

During the beginning of 1963 heavy snow brought chaos to Abergavenny and many of the outlying districts as some villages were cut off by drifts up to 15 feet high.

Bus services topped altogether, mail failed to get through and Abergavenny’s Tuesday market was the poorest for about 40 years, with only eight traders at the market instead of the usual 70.

Three New Year’s Eve dances were also canceled because of the heavy snow.

Falling snow also meant rising prices for vegetables and root crops in most of the Abergavenny grocery shops.

Local trader Mr. Vincent Sullivan told the Chronicle, “I feel confident that I can keep all my customers supplied even in these conditions. I am delivering to the county districts with the use of a hired jeep.”

On the Llangattock and Llangynidr mountain ranges, hay was dropped by helicopter to help feed the isolated and stranded ponies and sheep. Hundreds froze to death in the last severe snow of 1947.

The Chronicle reported that it was likely that hundreds of garden shrubs and trees were severely damaged during the falls of heavy snow, and concerns abounded that many of them would probably never recover their former symmetry or elegance.

Many people in the area were even forced to boil snow in order to get enough water for washing and drinking.

Throughout January the inclement weather entailed there was no sport, and it is only in the last week of February that the pitches in the area become playable again.

So that was the past and this is now!

Who knows what Old Man Winter has got in store for us before lazy Spring wakes up and sends him packing.

One thing’s for sure, in the UK we never tire of talking about the weather!