Can anyone as old as me or even older remember the 1962-1963 big freeze. In North East England it stated snowing on Boxing Day 1962 and the snow didn't thaw until early March 1963. Although the 1947 winter was bad and had much deeper snow. It was shorter in length and the 1962-1963 winter was longer and much colder than the 1947 Winter. The sea froze around the UK even in Southern England. It has been said that in the 1962-1963 winter that half the UK’s bird population didn't survive during that winter. But amazingly in only 5 years the population of the UK’s wild bird population had recovered. If another such winter happened now it is questionable whether some birds would recover and survive another such similar winter. Of course raptors where the most successful at surving that winter. Interestingly because of wild birds having so much difficulty of getting any food in that winter. Some small garden birds started to eat other wild birds that had died that winter in order to survive. So actually small birds started eating other dead birds in order to survive and as far as I know have never since behaved similarly since that winter and behaving like raptors during that winter. I've never posted about this subject before. I've posted a link from Channel 4 which gives some basic information on how bad the 1962-1963 big freeze was. Can anyone else remember the big freeze. And finally January 1963 was the coldest month for 200 years and since as well. The worst winter historically i can find was in 1709 and that winter was called across Europe as the The Big Frost. The link is now working.
https://youtu.be/PziZtxEqkQo
Regards,
Ian.
Pete
Birding is for everyone no matter how good or bad we are at it,enjoy it while you can
https://youtu.be/SOBXSqyKYXM I’ve seen video from a few months ago from a historian from North East England calling himself The Geordie Historian. This short 6 minute film shows mainly how bad the conditions where in North East England. For anyone that lives or has lived in North East England the final photo is from part of a well known part of the North East Coastline which shows the sea frozen solid. See if you recognise the part of North East Englands coastline and the sea frozen solid miles out from the mainland?
https://youtu.be/5UY6yJUbswE
The second link is the Channel 5 documentary lasting more than 1 hour broadcast early in 2022 called The big freeze of 1963. The length of this documentary on channel 5 was 1 hour 30 long with the commercial breaks. This leaves out all of those commercials. So this this recording is without hhose commercials. So the length here is 1 hour 7 minutes in total. Also later on in this documrntaey from 2022 the Met Office explains why the big freeze of 1962-1963 lasted just 2 weeks short of 3 months. Much longer than other bad winters since 1962-1963!
Unknown said:
The Winter of 62-63 effectively ended March 1963.
I'm curious on the location in the first video Ian [link bold and highlighted in yellow], around 2m 38s there is an image showing a Hillman Imp on the left. The Hillman Imp as far as I'm aware, was available to drive from the showrooms from May1963.
If the location was around Linwood, Scotland where they were made, or around Coventry and Warwickshire, which was where the Rootes Head Office and Engineering centre, it would make sense, the Hillman Imp would most likely be a prototype driven to prove its ok for public use and for advanced research into prospective issues customers might face.
This isn't to criticise the compiler of the photos, more to point out possible locations.
Mike
Flickr: Peak Rambler