GREAT SNOWFALL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20526, 9 April 1941, Page 3

GREAT SNOWFALL

NORTH OF ENGLAND MANY TOWNS ISOLATED TRAFFIC AT A STANDSTILL SOLDIERS CLEAR STREETS LONDON. March 10. The worst snowstorm since 1017 swept the North of England in the middle of February, and many towns and villages in Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland and Yorkshire were isolated for days. The remainder of England only became acquainted with this knowledge some three weeks later when fear of giving information of value to the German air force had passed.

It was a winter’s tale of delay, disruption and isolation. Villages and hamlets found themselves cut off from the outside world by drifts ol snow which mounted in places to 20ft. Transport was stopped and people were obliged to use windows as emergency exits from their homes. Some villages were cut off from their food supplies and "pools” were formed.

Industrial Life Disrupted

The results of the snowstorm were felt most in the north-east, and particularly in the Newcastle area, which had the heavist fall for something like half a century. Traffic was brought to a standstill, telephone communications were affected over a wide area, and considerable damage was dene to property. Snow fell heavily and continually for over 48 hours. People had to dig themselves out of their house through drifts of ’our or five feet deep. The industrial life of the area was disrupted, many people being unable to reach their place of employment.

A few Newcastle shops opened with skeleton staffs but soon closed because there were no customers. Meetings of all kinds and police court hearings were cancelled owing to the non-appearance of the people concerned. Mails were delayed as few trains got through. A hold-up on the main L.N.E.R. line a few miles north of Darlington was caused by a landslide. Hundreds of passengers were stranded for 38 hours, and food was taken out to them from Newcastle on motor-lorries.

Old-Age Pensioners’ Fate

Soldiers were called out to assist the authorities in the gigantic task of clearing the streets and repairing telephone wires. Army trucks were used at some points to clear a passage through the deep drifts, and side streets were cleared by volunteers, including women and children.

Roofs collapsed under the weight of the snow and two old-age pensioners were fatally injured. During the height of the storm Newcastle hotels were crowded with people unable to get home. Roads throughout Northumberland and Durham were almost blocked and near Durham there were drifts seven feet deep.

In Edinburgh the snowfall was almost unprecedented. It lay to a depth of a foot in the main thoroughfares, the first fall having gone on without a stop for 38 hours.

Drifts up to 15ft. deep in North Derbyshire completely isolated most of the villages, and hundreds of soldiers assisted in digging singleway tracks through many of the moorland roads. During one of these storms nearly 100 vehicles, including motor-buses were abandoned. Farmers dug out more than 'IOO dead sheep on the third day after the thaw had set in.