A few memories linger from that winter. The first tiny, tiny flakes of snow that fell tentatively from a heavy sky, then thronged in a graceful dance, and finally cascaded down relentlessly. The unexpected wildness of deep drifts on the steep bank of the playing fields shared by the two schools, the Junior and Senior Academies. And the great, joyful snowball fights that erupted at break times. My response to the snow was purely aesthetic, but the craving for the obliteration of all distinctions and differences comes from a deeper wellspring of the psyche. The longing for the sight, sensation and swish of falling snow has never left. But it caused so much disruption as Britain did not prepare for these infrequent severe winters.
With my 11th birthday in January of 1963, I must have been in Primary 7 of Perth Junior Academy, the qualifying year, when the somewhat dreaded 11+ exams had to be taken. Often stealing glances out of the classroom window towards Necessity Brae, with its fringe of dark pine woods, I would look with a joyful expectancy at the dark margin against which the tell-tale advance of a new snow shower could be seen. Icy slides in the playground, probably now banned under Health and Safety regimes, dared the adventurous. The snowball fights gave first glimmerings that I might command a force of some kind, though that only manifested a long time later on!
Any significant snowfall and lasting cold conditions depended on the establishment of high pressure over Scandinavia, with low pressure pushing up against it from the Bay of Biscay. This brings in a strong easterly flow from Russia, where temperatures are frigid, and the wind over the North Sea picks up moisture emerging in frequent snow showers on eastern coasts. But the greatest snowfall could occur in the south of England, rather than in Scotland, as this was the intersection between the milder Atlantic moisture-laden air and the sub-zero flow pouring in from distant Siberia.
Described as a ‘battle’ between the opposing air masses, the winds generated led to blizzard conditions and huge drifts of snow in hilly areas. The heaviest accumulation could be in Devon, Cornwall and south Wales, which in normal years might enjoy a milder winter climate. It was ironic that one of the coldest places was Kent, with its proximity to a glacial continental mass, colder at times than Scotland. Even if the milder air was bound to win ultimately, it might be pushed back a few times in the campaign, and at least the cold ground and snow-covered land would see a last blizzard, a final stand, preceding the great melting.
Thus began a daily march of snow showers along the quiet valley of the broadening Tay from Dundee and the North Sea. Some salted pavements shone wet and shiny, but as temperatures dropped again in late afternoon a familiar blurring of the air over Kinnoull Hill to the east hazed the outstretched town of Perth with drifting-down snow, whitened up pathways, filled and softened the daily commerce of footprints.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/gallery/2010/dec/15/weather-big-freeze-1962-pictures
You never tired of watching flakes drift down in amber light of lamps, laying siege to window sills, smothering spindly rose bushes, dusting iron railings of front garden fences. The small bedroom, a north facing cave, a hideout, was privy to secret rituals and observances. The sash window opened up; a kneeling figure leaned a head out. Sensing falling snow on nose and hair, it breathed in the hushed garden, cherished perpetual flakes replenishing, nourishing, deepening the great white coverlet.
Then, in March, after two months of cold, the battle approached the end. Strengthening south-easterly winds brought snowfall to England, followed by rising temperatures. The last frontier of resistance was Scotland. Pavements had encrusted ice, but the temperature hovered around 39 Fahrenheit, bleak skies glowered. Finally, the moment of precipitation was near, and as the snow belt moved in, that evening the temperature fell suddenly to 32 degrees, exactly on freezing point, and immense waves of fine snow fell blindly, negligently smothering everything in the last great blizzard of the winter.
But there was no exhilaration in the northern cave the following morning. Window up, take a look out, check the temperature, now 35 degrees, and only a sense of heavy, soggy snow. Despite its impressive depth, the snow was thawing, slivers sliding off the sturdy apple tree, a quiet, sad dampness in the air. The great freeze was finally at an end, and something greatly welcomed by all but the quirky boy snow-celebrant in Needless Road, Perth, Scotland.