LONDON IN WINTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 58, 9 March 1936, Page 6

LONDON IN WINTER.

FEW HEAVY SNOWSTORMS,

(By NELLE M. SCAXLAN.)

London is under snow; it looks like the 'old-fashioned Christmas card come true, only lovelier. Nothing can damp my enthusiasm for a snowstorm, and when you stand at a London window, and watch the big "goosefeather" flakes fluttering down and settling on the red roofs, the dark wet of the polished streets, nestling in the hollows, outlining hedge, gatepost and the dark boughs of the leafless trees, it weaves a spell that repays the cold before and the slush which is the dirty aftermath of snow in a city. Instantly I put 011 my bonnet and cloak and strike out for Hampstead Heath, panting up the steep hill in company with small boys and eager youths, hoping there will be enough snow foi a fight, if not for a slide.

The London winter is not so severe as in years gone by. ITcavy snow storms are few, and two or three slight falls are all we may hope for in one winter. Yesterday as the buses and cars slithered about on the enow, an ancient stood shaking his head. "Sky looks a bit like it did when we had the great fall in 18S1," lie said pessimistically. "'Ah, but them were the days, horse trams; that s what vou want; there was none of this skidding about." But the sky had lied to him. It was not a heavy fall, although we woke up this morning to find over an inch of beautiful snow covering the city. Then the milk cars began to draw dark lines with their wheels; the coal carts came, the day's rush of traflic arrived, and the strftets were churned to filthy slush, which spat from passing wheels on to angry pedestrians. A Motoring Nightmare. Motorists were having trouble everywhere. Xot only were their wheels skidding, but the feathery flakes covered the windscreens, and even the most conscientious screen wiper got stuck every few minutes. Then out got the irate driver, and wiped the screen clear, but had to do it all over again in a mile or two. Housemaids could be seen sprinkling the steps with salt, to melt the snow; enterprising unemployed appeared from nowhere with shovel and broom, offering to clear your steps and path. Shopkeepers spread sand outside their door so that wealthy customers might not fall and break a leg. And a pony in a milk float gave birth to a foal 011 the side of the road. You never know what will hapnen next in London; it is a place where anything goes.

It hasn't boon a bad winter, really. I've soon much worse. We've had terrific pales, which have brought a heavy toll of death around the coast; floods and other odds and ends, but not much severe cold; in fact it has been rather mild. Still, one wearies of grey skies, fog and rain, rain and fog, with an occasional gale. When the sun came out in a clear, blue sky after weeks and weeks of absence they would probably have proclaimed a public holiday, only fortunately it was a Sunday. Bad Winter for Sports It is quite amazing that enow ever lies on the ground in London, when vmi think of the millions of chimneys all smoking warmly, the petrol fumes being expelled from motors and buses, and the heat that must be generated by millions of people living and breathing, cooking their food and warming their shine. One would expect to find the lower altitude rather cosy in tlio heart of a great city. Yet the temperature drops very low, and a few nights of frost prepares even the roads to hold the snow for some hours.

It has been a bad winter for sport. Quite a number of race meetings have been cancelled; either the course was sodden with rain or under flood, or it was frozen by frost, or a fog swept down and invisibility was all in favour of an outsider winning, and so the horses did not face the barrier at all. Hunting has been stopped in , several counties on account of flood or frost, but it takes a lot to stop a football match.