• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Weather : past adverse weather in Birmingham

P

Peter Walker

gone but not forgotten
The winter of 1947 was really grim. Cold and snow, shortage of fuel, electricity and gas weren't always on and no wireless during the day. School was closed, and I was horrified to hear on the wireless at home when it was working that even London was isolated from our home for a few days, but they seem to have survived that ordeal.
Came the thaw and the River Tame did its worst from Newton Road past Hamstead, right through Perry Barr to Witton, at least as far as Brookvale Road - I don't know what happened on Aston Road and around Salford Bridge.
For a day or to Walsall Road was impassable. I remember cycling down on the first Monday evening of Summer Time, opposite Tucker Eyelets, to see that Walsall Road was still under water there, as were a few houses. The Midland Red buses were diverted via Church Road and Aldridge Road I seem to remember. The bridge at Aldridge Road was new, built in about 1939 and above flood level, although the old narrow zigzag bridge alongside was submerged.
I cannot remember what happened on the Brookvale Road, where the river ran parallel. I am certain that it flooded over the road, but I can't say now whether the 5 and 11 buses were diverted. It may be on record somewhere.
In the next few months a major widening of the river was carried out, but I see from an excellent website of photos [there is a link somewhere on this marvellous site] that the river banks were reinforced again in about 1980, when the old railings alongside nthe river were replaced by a four-foot wall with handrail on the top.
Peter
 
Blews Street Park

Yes Alf, I remember the 47 winter. But I lived in Witton and our snow was just piled into walls on the edge of the footpaths. I couldn't see over the top. There were gaps left so that you could cross the road. :D
 
Re: Blews Street Park

We were living in Charles Arthur Street in 1947, and I can remember our mom opening the front door to be faced by a wall of snow, I went to my school Cromwell Street and the caretaker had dug a path from the gate to the school, the snow was piled up so I couldnt see over it. Do you remember the massive icicles that hung down from every gutter, the would have killed you if they fell on you. We was alright though three in a bed covered with old coats, enough to keep anyone warm.
 
I wasnt around in 1947 but I learned from my parents that it had been dreadful and very snowy over an extended period. I do remember the winter of 1962/63 it was also snowy but not as bad as 1947, it was however colder than the 1947 winter according to the history books.
 
1947 was too early for me also,but I do remember the 1962/63 winter.That was the first winter I was at work.I was an apprentice pipe fitter,and we were working on the Birmingham University Halls of Residence on Church Road Edgbaston.The steel pipe was stored outside,and the first job for one of us lads was to remove the snow,and melt the ice using oxy-acetylene welding lamps,to free up the tube required for that day.No-one would accept our suggestion of moving the pipe within the building,it was the "we had to do it when we were kids "attitude.The other job was to light the "fire buckets"around the site next to the work benches to keep the fitters warm.We didn't need fire buckets to keep warm we were too busy screwing threads on pipes all day.If anyone has screwed 2" pipe by hand all days they will know what I mean.We ended up like body builders.What made it worse was on a number of occasions I had to walk home to Kings Heath through the snow because the buses had stopped running.But we were young and took it all in our stride.

Colin
 
It's a good job Health and Safety wasn't in full swing then, :2funny:, and what happens today, school closes when there is snow and ice just in case the parents sue the education for any of their childs mishaps.
:flower: :cat:
 
I can recall going to see SCOTT OF THE ANTARCTIC at the Orient cinema by six ways ,with Upper Thomas St School . When we came out, one of the LOO pipes on the side of the building must have burst & there were icicles about 8ft x 5" long hanging the whole side of building seemed to be like a great ice Gracia. :oTalk about the arctic, I do not know why Scott bothered. :2funny:
 
Colin,
        I too was a pipe strangler ,and also worked through the same weather as you mentioned I was doing it for J S Wrights on the Hagley Road. I remember one day it was that cold that as we spoke our breath froze, we had to gather it up and throw it on the fire to thaw it out to see what we had said. 2 inch pipes,nothing try screwing 4 inch all day,my mate was so strong he used to walk around with a length of 3 inch behind his ear!!.Ice is a wonderful thing I saw boilers and radiators split apart like a pack of cards, 4 inch cast iron pipes pulled apart as sweet as a nut, and anyone who tried to uncork cast iron knows what I mean.
Colin I feel I ought to know you who did you do it for.
 
I'll tell you what always used to bug me...it was whenever I was working outside in the middle of Winter someone in all seriousness would say 'Its ok for you, you're used to it'
Well no, not really..how do you get used to copper tube sticking to your fingers as you pick it up? anyone who's worked outside especially on building sites know you can only wear so much clothing otherwise you cant work..gloves DEFINATELY were a no-no.
I can remember being on pricework and knowing by 9 am and although bone cold I would be working until at least 3 pm freezing to death (thank God for early Winter nights)
And for real fun sit on a cold tiled roof doing leadwork among the snow flurries and a biting easterly wind..
And if you got inside?
well new houses were damp, dark and miserable..
I tell you there is NO worse place on earth than a frozen muddy building site in Winter...you kids of today dont know you're born..
I was poor, but (sniff) I was bloody miserable..
 
Anyone remember the Lorries and the Workmen in and around Aston shovelling the Snow on to the Lorries and Transporting it to Blew Street Park. It looked like a White Desert and we would play there for hours after leaving Cowper Street School each evening.
 
Well these days I sit behind a desk (or if the weathers nice I go driving around and checking how the working masses are getting on) I'm waited on hand and foot by sexy nubile middle aged women...
And I'm pleased to say I'm pretty well paid for the priviledge..
Foreigners (side jobs) I pick and choose them these days..they only enhance what I have now..a truly wonderful life..
 
Well it was worth it then all the suffering, so good luck for many more good years to come O0
 
i remember the 1947 snow storms we were snowed in could not get out of the house, still all the food was dried stuff
so we did not go hungry, powdered eggs- powdered potatoes- i think everything came in packets those day's

jake
 
Everything is in Packets now in the Supermarkets Jake I sure they would put the Lottery in packets if they could. :)
 
Winter1947 for me was spent waiting at Barton Stacey
for a draft to go abroad, very cold, much scrounging
for anything that would burn,and then after 10 day's on board
ship arriving at hot sunny Egypt,
what a change of climate in a matter of a few day's
 
Adelaide,I served my apprenticeship with Richard Crittall,they had a office and yard in Gooch Street North.
I started with them in 1962 and left them in 1969.
We did a lot of work for Birmingham University and the Birmingham Hospitals when I worked for them,my last job being on Newman College at Bartley Green.
I went to Garretts Green Tech.College for H & V pipe fitters and pipe welding gas and arc

Colin
 
Wasn't around in 1947 but mum tells me she remembers it. They lived in Handsworth and she said as she recalled it she thought it was lovelly, all the snow in trees etc. She 's the kind who always only recalls the good things, bless! She was quite young at the time and had only been married for a couple of years.

ChrisB
 
Although I have some fairly clear personal memories of this ordeal, they are hardly reliable after so many years. I can remember being housebound for over a week because the schools were closed because there was no fuel for heating, while the snow piled up outside and it was announced on the radio that there was no transport connection between London and Birmingham. Also I remember that to save fuel, the transmitters closed down in the early afternoon and after about 9.00 pm. It really was a fuel crisis. I have mentioned my most vivid memory before that of seeing coal trains end to end on the slow tracks to the gas works at Saltley from the North Warwickshire coalfield. The signal was permanently down and drivers just followed the train in front.
   Fortunately I can rely on my grandmothers diary for a more detailed record of some of the things that happened. She would have been 63 at the time and, while most of her terse notes are about friends and family, a few other things come up. The previous Christmas had been very cold, and she had bought a chicken and some veal for the holiday, which cost her 8s 7d (42 new pence). My parents and I went to her house in Grasmere Road, Handsworth for a chicken lunch on Christmas Eve, which was on a Wednesday that year.
   The next few days remained cold, but she went to Wednesbury on Friday 3 January to meet her ex sister in law, and she noted that the next day was too cold to go out. She had not yet retired, and was due to go back to teach at All Saints Infants School on the following Monday, when it was snowing for the first time that year. Miss Cole, the Headmistress, rang her to tell her not to go, but the school must have reopened a day or two later. She wrote that Miss Cole had a bad cold the following week. Although Friday 17 January was a spring day, the next Monday was very cold in the school, and it stayed like that, with various teachers off sick yes, the teachers took sickies in those days too, until Friday 24th, when the first serious snow started, and they were sent home early. Meanwhile, she was fortunate enough to get 3 cwt of coal delivered. She got to the hairdressers and her two sisters in Ellen Street on the Saturday, but stayed in on the Sunday.
    The following week continued cold, and she must have taken her usual frost precautions (oil lamps in the outside loo and rag round the outlet from the sink), and she wrote on Saturday 1 February that the hot water pipe was all right, and for Sunday Snow. Next day she did have the expected burst, and got away from school early to have it seen to. The school was closed for the next three days, reopened for two hours only on the Friday. It opened again for the first part of the next week, but a scheduled one day half term break was extended to cover Thursday to Tuesday. She commented that that day there was a better attendance. But it was still very cold  in fact 39 deg F in the classroom.
    The worst came on Monday 24 February, when there was an extreme frost, and she had two burst pipes. Next day there was a blizzard, the power failed on the Wednesday. As she could not use her kitchen range because water had been drained from the back boiler, she had to cook on the gas oven next weekend  which she regarded as a waste of money.
    By this time it was early March, and the snow kept falling, and she finally got the plumber to repair her pipes a week after the event, and lent some coal to a neighbour. She got to school quite late most days, but others were later still, and then on Saturday 8 March came the first signs of a thaw. Education Week had been planned to start on Monday 10 March, but was cancelled, as there was no coke at school. It was still thawing, with fog on the Thursday. Her story really fizzles out here. She writes that on the Friday and Saturday it snowed again, and that Summer Time started on Sunday, 16 March, which I well remember. Flooding was widespread, and there are other postings on those floods, which were worst, I remember, on the following Monday.
Peter
 
House bound Peter because of snow? we were all out there during ANY weather...tsk, you kids of today
 
Les it was snow like I haven't seen since, when you opened the door the snow fell into the house. My dad would have to dig himself in to the back door every day when he got home from work. He would often walk to Fort Dunlop and home again in the dark. The snow was piled on the sides of the road, so the road  and the footpaths were clear, and there were openings so that you could cross the rroad's To us children it was like walking inside walls of frozen snow. 

Was it really 60 years ago Peter, it seems like yesterday.  :)
 
My bedroom faced North and it was a freezing ice box with frost and ice inside and outside
the panes. I was so fascinated by the endless snow that I would breathe on the glass and
look outside every night. The front gardens were disappearing under the snow. My water glass was frozen on the bedside table. It was very hard to keep warm as there was no heat upstairs. We had a metal waterbottle which we would fill with hot water and that was used to warm up the beds. No keeping it mind you...it had to "do" for all of us.

It was like walking along in a white building with narrow corridors when you finally got outside to go to school. There were no proper winter clothes as such and people
who could get wool and knit warm items were lucky. One pair of gloves would soon be filled with snow and soaking wet. It was lovely to look at but hell to go out in.
 
And it was such a horrible experience Jennyann, you moved where exactly? :2funny:
 
Yes, Les I moved to Canada as you know. That was many years later. After a few years in the snowy winters
of Ontario for which I was better equipped, I buzzed off to Lotus Land...the West Coast of Canada where we have very little snow in the winter except on the mountains..thank goodness! It was 11 degrees C here today and the rest of the country is in the deep freeze.....poor loves.
By the way Les..do you sleep in the daytime or don't you need much shut eye?.....you are up when your world is asleep for the most part. :smiley6600:
 
I'm one of the lucky ones, I dont need much sleep, probably 5/6 hours a day.
Which means I get to bed about 10.30/11pm and I'm awake and up around 4 am.
(which is why I always look so rough!)
I love the early morning, I call it my quiet time.
Having said that, I can stay up to 1am or later, depends what I'm doing.
 
:angel: Here we are not sure who posted this a while back, but I'm glad I was in My Mom's tummy at the time
 
Last edited:
Dont remember that year but was the year i was born in Ladywood

Ido remember 1962-63 was the year i started work, in Selly Oak and had to walk to work
some days,
 
The picture of the bus almost buried in snow reminded me of us kids ( i was eight at the time) helpingto clear a path up the incline of our road so we could get to the Baker's van and the Milkman, they could'nt get down our road, usually they delivered on horse and carts, i presume it was a bit dodgy for the horses. We kids thought it was great, My Mum who worked at Aston Goods Station, couldnt get to work for two days, at the time we lived in Northfield. Regards Jackie
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top