Images courtesy of:
Dales Countryside Museum, Frank Knowles, Ann Holubecki and openphoto.net © Miroslav Vajdic
‘47 snow it were terrible. It started oh, everything was dry and it was quite nice and sunny, it started one Sunday night and it started to blow and me husband said ‘Get your sticks and coals in it’s going to be a storm’, and on it blew, and it blew, and it blew. You know it didn’t stop. But there were some lovely days and beautiful drifts and the sun sparkling on it just like gold and silver. Oh it was marvellous, but oh, when it did blow, it blew.
I was expecting James then. And every time I used to try and shake me mat I used to climb up this hill and I used to get me feet in the snow drift and I couldn’t get it out with me stomach here, and oh trying to get me leg out – oh, it was terrible!
It seemed to go on, and on, and on. It started about 27th of January and it went on till April, I thought well I’m going to be here stuck in all this snow and expecting a baby. In them days you used to get cut off, you didn’t get anywhere. As fast as you dug snow out on the main road even they couldn’t keep that. There were no buses, or anything. We had no electric in them days, and we used to walk down for a gallon of petrol. They couldn’t get up many a time for coal, so we used to get them left at the bottom and all our meal was left for the cows and we used to lead them up in horse and cart it was ever so slow.
Oh and then when it thawed, oh dear! It was awful, the water you know, there was rivers all over! It used to come through the garage, and way down, and lots of lambs drowned you know, when we started lambing. We used to go and hack sheep off the ground ‘cos they’d frozen to the ground. We had to rive them off so they could get up and walk about and eat the hay and oh, it was terrible.
And when it’s windy and it’s snowing they’d blow the sheep to the wall you see, then they get covered over with snow. They’re all right till the snow saddens, and then the snow squashes them.
I’ve seen them flat, oh, it was funny, ehm, when it started to thaw, it started to…the wind came from the west, it was always in the east, and do you know they started with a little snow ball, this wind blew them till they got to the other side and they were quite a big ball. It was so funny, you know! I had never seen anything like it before and… but you know the beautiful shaped drifts - they were lovely, it was, you know, I wished I’d had a camera but I hadn’t a camera in them days. It was lovely, but it was cruel!
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