We've had an early hard winter this year that looks like it will run well into the new year and at the present everything is more or less shut down.
In general in the 50's/60's, as us old ones can testify, Stag'33 in particular, winters like the ones we've had for the last 3 years were the norm, the difference being very few folk had cars, maybe 1 or 2 in the whole street, in some streets there were none but nearly eveyone had a push bike and you'd be surprised how well you can travel in the snow on one.
90% of the folk worked within a mile of where they lived, so no need for cars really, most went on shanks' pony, if it was any further there was always the bus,quite often 'works busses laid on by the employers and normally subsidised.
Farm work was manually intensive with farm workers/labourers living in 'tied' cottages usually within the confines of the farm so no need for transport, nowadays a couple of farm workers are 'shared' between several farms, every thing being heavily automated, today, literally today, there are winter crops, ie. sprouts, cabbage and leeks that cannot be harvested because the ground is frozen and the 'machines' can't cope so watch the price of fresh british produce rise. In the good/bad old days all this harvesting was done by hand regardless of the weather, quite often by housewives earning an 'extra few bob'.
The majority of married women/mothers never worked , there was no such words as "house husbands", that is a figment of the 70's/80's
Trains were good transport in those days, stations in even the small towns and some larger villages, most goods came mainly by rail and each station had it's fleet of 3 wheel wagons for local deliveries, none of these big artics, the only lorries you came across with regularity were coal wagons, then Mr Beaching decided in his wisdom to cut the railways to the bone, thousands of miles of track and hundreds of stations, all gone in the name of progress.
Yes, we're all victims of progress, hundreds of cars, lorries and aircraft all snowed in, some progress, I can remember as a child of 6 walking to school with everyone walking in single file in a rut of snow 8" high on each side, no chelsea tractors in those days, nowadays, a few inches of snow and everything comes to a grinding halt, yep, that's progress for you !!!....callie
In general in the 50's/60's, as us old ones can testify, Stag'33 in particular, winters like the ones we've had for the last 3 years were the norm, the difference being very few folk had cars, maybe 1 or 2 in the whole street, in some streets there were none but nearly eveyone had a push bike and you'd be surprised how well you can travel in the snow on one.
90% of the folk worked within a mile of where they lived, so no need for cars really, most went on shanks' pony, if it was any further there was always the bus,quite often 'works busses laid on by the employers and normally subsidised.
Farm work was manually intensive with farm workers/labourers living in 'tied' cottages usually within the confines of the farm so no need for transport, nowadays a couple of farm workers are 'shared' between several farms, every thing being heavily automated, today, literally today, there are winter crops, ie. sprouts, cabbage and leeks that cannot be harvested because the ground is frozen and the 'machines' can't cope so watch the price of fresh british produce rise. In the good/bad old days all this harvesting was done by hand regardless of the weather, quite often by housewives earning an 'extra few bob'.
The majority of married women/mothers never worked , there was no such words as "house husbands", that is a figment of the 70's/80's
Trains were good transport in those days, stations in even the small towns and some larger villages, most goods came mainly by rail and each station had it's fleet of 3 wheel wagons for local deliveries, none of these big artics, the only lorries you came across with regularity were coal wagons, then Mr Beaching decided in his wisdom to cut the railways to the bone, thousands of miles of track and hundreds of stations, all gone in the name of progress.
Yes, we're all victims of progress, hundreds of cars, lorries and aircraft all snowed in, some progress, I can remember as a child of 6 walking to school with everyone walking in single file in a rut of snow 8" high on each side, no chelsea tractors in those days, nowadays, a few inches of snow and everything comes to a grinding halt, yep, that's progress for you !!!....callie