{"id":12450,"date":"2022-03-21T11:13:15","date_gmt":"2022-03-21T11:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brentorpc.org.uk\/?page_id=12450"},"modified":"2023-03-11T15:48:48","modified_gmt":"2023-03-11T15:48:48","slug":"12450-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.brentorpc.org.uk\/?page_id=12450","title":{"rendered":"The blizzards of 1963"},"content":{"rendered":"

The blizzards of 1963<\/h3>\n
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In recent years Brentor has been spared deep snow.\u00a0 Even in 2018 the 'beast from the east' caused only a few snowdrifts.\u00a0 But in 1963 it was quite a different story...........<\/span><\/h5>\n
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South Brentor Lane, probably 1963, photo by Mike Whitfield<\/p><\/div>\n

These reminiscences are from articles in\u00a0 Brentor News in December 2001 and January 2002 by Denis Young, who lived in Burn Lane House and who took a great interest in the history of Brentor.<\/p>\n

'The following article is taken from my extensive notes written so many years ago.<\/p>\n

Saturday 29 December 1962.\u00a0 Snow had been falling since the previous night with a biting east wind.\u00a0 We spent the coming night huddled downstairs with just one fire, trying to keep warm. The electricity had failed many hours ago and we had only oil lamps. Since late afternoon blizzard conditions had prevailed, but it was now at its maximum.\u00a0 The whole area becoming engulfed in the still developing deep snowdrifts, these were to increase in the coming night.\u00a0 Visibility outside was nil.\u00a0 The driving snow was like a thick fog.\u00a0 The temperature was below zero degrees centigrade and was to stay that way for many days.<\/p>\n

By now the G.W.R. and S.R. railway lines were completely blocked between Brentor and Lydford.\u00a0 By then two snow ploughs and a freight train were buried at Lydford.\u00a0 In Brentor we could only huddle together, with no contact with the outside world, just the scream of the wind and the deepening drifts.<\/p>\n

As dawn broke the wind had eased, as had the falling snow.\u00a0 We had to shovel our way out of the house.\u00a0 We were lucky as others were under deep snow.\u00a0 Silence now, just the sounds of voices and shovelling as people tried to free their doors and cut narrow tracks through the deep snow.\u00a0 We were all well and truly cut off.\u00a0 No power and with just the food we had and oil for our lamps.\u00a0 The cottages below us, at line level, had the snow up to their roofs.\u00a0 Even the bedroom windows could not be seen.\u00a0 An amazing sight and not one to be forgotten.<\/p>\n

Burn Lane was just an enormous snowdrift, with the snow many feet deep and reaching up to the tops of the hedges.\u00a0 Nothing was moving. We could only wait.<\/p>\n

A third snow plough and a train bringing troops to help clear the lines became stuck and frozen at Mary Tavy.\u00a0 We all kept digging our way out.\u00a0 Why we all bothered I don't know.\u00a0 Nobody was going anywhere, they couldn't.\u00a0 Our geese and chickens had all survived, after digging them out of their buried house.\u00a0 They all spent the next few nights in our pump room tucked up inside sacks.\u00a0 They all seemed happy, once we have got them all in the sacks each night that is.<\/p>\n

At that time many men living in Brentor worked on the railway, it was the lifeblood of the area, that and farming (plus me in engineering).\u00a0 Many of them were out there on the line digging, helped by the many troops in the bitter cold.<\/p>\n

The remainder of Sunday the 30th December and Monday the 31st December 1962 was spent digging out.\u00a0 Single line working had then been achieved on the railway.\u00a0 More men and troops arrived.\u00a0 Still bitterly cold.\u00a0 On Thursday 3rd January 1963 the snow returned.\u00a0 By afternoon the wind rose and with it the second blizzard.\u00a0 In Burn Lane we remained huddled inside the house.\u00a0 I cannot remember if power had returned.\u00a0 The now-released snow ploughs were kept busy running up down the single opened line to keep it open.\u00a0 In the night the wind dropped.\u00a0 Between Friday 4th January and Tuesday 8th January, calm conditions but colder with more snow on the way.<\/p>\n

Wednesday 9th January saw another severe blizzard arrive suddenly.\u00a0 The lines again became blocked with the two snow ploughs plus two other trains part derailed buried.\u00a0 In Burn Lane we were still cut off from the outside world.<\/p>\n

Thursday 10th January and the blizzard, the third, had gone, but some more very heavy drifting during the night.\u00a0 Colder still.\u00a0 We could hear the many men and troops down on the line.\u00a0 By evening even they had stopped, still falling temperatures and moving deep drifts had brought them to a halt.\u00a0 Next day they carried on, we could hear them as they kept striking the line.\u00a0 Calm conditions came to stay, possibly even colder, still way below freezing in the day.\u00a0 Colder at night.<\/p>\n

With the railway partly open, we could move at last.\u00a0 As I recall I travelled to Plymouth each day (no snow there) for about three weeks, then driving there in my A35, by way of Bowden Down and Westcott, the road past Brentor being blocked for some time.\u00a0 The three weeks travelling by train I remember clearly, also driving my A35 with no chains proved interesting, if a little hairy when I kept sliding on the ice.\u00a0 Happily there were not many other vehicles out.<\/p>\n

Lack of space prevents me from doing anything more than outline the fourth blizzard, which struck on Tuesday 5th Febmary 1963, together with a force 9 gale causing enormous drifts even deeper than before. The lines were again blocked for days. Trains were buried under the drifts and troops returned once more.<\/p>\n

Slowly life returned to normal, thanks to the railway and the many men and troops who worked so hard out in the wind, cold and snow, often badly protected.\u00a0 Somebody told me many years ago that it had cost many millions of pounds to keep the line clear between Mary Tavy and Meldon.\u00a0 If the blizzards come back, God knows what we will do!'<\/p>\n

Brentor Living Archive has very few photographs of the 1963 blizzards in Brentor. \u00a0\u00a0 If you have any please email them to the editor at<\/span> editor@brentorpc.org.uk<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent years Brentor has been spared deep snow.\u00a0 Even in 2018 the ‘beast from the east’ caused only a few snowdrifts.\u00a0 But in 1963 it was quite a different story……….. These reminiscences are from articles in\u00a0 Brentor News in December 2001 and January 2002 by Denis Young, who lived in Burn Lane House and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":13583,"menu_order":84,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12450","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brentorpc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brentorpc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brentorpc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brentorpc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brentorpc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12450"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.brentorpc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14839,"href":"https:\/\/www.brentorpc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12450\/revisions\/14839"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brentorpc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brentorpc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brentorpc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brentorpc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}