Winter Tales

[Archev]

Whilst I'm in the groove so to speak , I will regale you with another, involving the best piece of driving skill I have ever done.
The 81/82 winter had the roads covered in ice which even the salt didn't shift. Bury leisure centre has a car park which is exited by three 90 degree corners linked by short downhill stretches of straight road one of which is around 100m and goes past the main vehicular entrance for Bury nick. After a game of Badminton I left in my Hillman Avenger and thought I would test my driving skill. The first RH bend was approached and a touch of brake , steering and hand brake had me sliding into it at around 45 degrees . 20 m to the next LH bend , same sort of thing but opposite had me gracefully going left ready to straighten out for the 100m straight . Now impressed by my own confidence I let it carry on sliding left until I was a right angles to the down hill stretch and continued sliding down past the open garage doors of the police station with my headlights shining into the interior and a self satisfied grin reflected back from the interior mirror. Now heading for the third RH bend the direction of which is 180 degrees away from where I'm pointing , loads of RH lock , more handbrake and a perfectly executed half spin had me nicely aligned on the exit road.
I do not recall my parents mentioning any Swedish connections/ relatives, s perhaps there's a bit of Viking DNA floating around unnoticed , can't stand boats or water though!

My Avenger estate was probably differently balanced then. I did a similar exercise and connected with a kerb, bending a suspension arm and never steered correctly again. (Neither did the car )

 

[T1 Terry]

Part 2
Ice Tales from Tassie
Chapter 2

The first snow at the new place was unexpected .... I thought we were below the snow line .... apparently anywhere south of the mainland was past the snowline

Couldn't get the car out of the driveway because it sloped down to the house .... rang the bus yard, someone came out and picked me up, my apprentice .... didn't he have a laugh, ribbed the hell out of me and naturally all 26 bus run drivers, 15 school bus drivers and 20 tour bus drivers all got in on the party But all in good fun, they were really great to work with and apparently, I was the best mechanic they had work there in 3yrs ..... I knew nothing about busses, they were just long bodied trucks for people as far as I was concerned .......

The boss man gave me the 5 tonne International truck he bought with a heap of other stuff from an auction .....
I drove home in my new to me work truck, feeling like the king of the world, and parked in front of the house on the flat road section ......
Next morning, can't get the truck to move forwards or backwards water has run down the gutter, then frozen ..... more laughs all round as the apprentice had to pick me up again
The next week was really just rain and more rain ..... but I'd taken to parking the truck down on the lower road, I wasn’t going to get caught again.

The rain over the weekend had turned to absolutely freezing cold ..... carefully made my way out to walk down the hill to the truck …. Got about half way and over I went …. Rolling and sliding the rest of the way down the hill.

Some what battered and wet, I arrived at the bus yard ….. they took two looks at me, then decided they wouldn’t say anything, but told me the bus over the pit needed to have the brakes adjusted and was already late to start the passenger run to Adelaide….

Off I went a quick skip down the steps, swing off the bumper and bang …. I look up from the bottom of the pit, the whole crew of bus drivers are there looking very worried and very sheepish …..

The rain had filled to lower section of the pit and then frozen solid, they thought it would be hilarious to send me down into the frozen pit and watch me slip sliding around ….. they didn’t allow for the fact I usually swung down over the last two steps to land with my feet planted in the bottom of the pit, the water was up to the second step from the bottom, so instead of dropping down, I slammed forehead first into the front axle I beam, momentarily knocking myself out and ending up flat on my back on the ice ….. they took me off to casualty at the Royal Hobart hospital, I had the next week off on compo and they had to explain to the boss just how the accident had happened, yet they were all there at just the right time to see what happened …….
I was blaming myself for being so stupid, when I got back to work, they all apologised and took me out on a pub crawl that Friday night to say sorry ….

Never took any surface for granted if it wasn't warm and the whole area dry after that ......

T1 Terry

 

[Archev]

Dangerous things jobs.

 

[securespark]

Yeah, but at least when you have one, you usually get days off.

Retire and you never do...

 

[T1 Terry]

A well known line "I have no idea how I found time for work, I've been flat out 24/7 since I retired"

I'm a bit the same, but I don't generally sleep flat on my back, it causes serious rib pain on the side the wife sleeps and the threat "I'll put a pillow over your head if you don't roll over and stop snoring"

T1 Terry

 

[EVsince2016]

The recent snow got me thinking.

What was the worst winter I have ever known?

Now, I'm a relative youngster (b1966), so wouldn't know the winters of 46-7 or 62-3, but I do very well remember being stuck at boarding school in December 1981 in West Yorks and not being able to get home. Mum couldn't get over. The Woodhead was closed, the Snake was closed, the 62 was closed and the railway was closed.

We were stuck at school until finally BR managed to get the snow plough down the line and we got on a train across the Pennines.

It was close to a UK version of the Indian trains, it was absolutely jam-packed, people and luggage everywhere, not helped by the fact that all of us boarders had huge trunks!

I can't remember the ins and outs, which station we left from (I think it was Pontefract Monkshill) but we got home eventually, albeit many days later than the planned end of term/ year.

I remember seeing news reports of sheep being airlifted from fields and a record -27 North of the border.

What are your Winter Tales?

January 1987, 30" of powder snow and minus 10. All the trains broke down due to the wrong kind of snow getting into the traction motors. The doors also froze over so you couldn't get on either!

February 1991 we had 4 feet of snow, again powder snow and minus 15-20 for a week. My office was used to house stranded drivers. Luckily I could walk to work then, with things strapped to my feet. I remember walking over gates, hedges and a car. Trains also suffered the same fate and my favorites, the class 309, which ran faultlessly ended up having a few units permanently withdrawn and then scrapped due to extensive electrical damage when they thawed out.

Both were in East London so not a remote location either.

 

[Cushie]

I started school in 1941 in NE England and was taken there at the start of the very first day only. My first bad winter of 41/42 the snow was above my shoulder level and I walked alone through narrow trenches already dug along the footpaths guided only by the roof shapes only for about half a mile (and still in short pants until 14 yrs old) I smile today when schools are closed for half an inch of snow! I do remember those bad winters mentioned before.

 

[salty]

Agree, about closing schools down for literally the slightest thing, it's laughable.
But, think it's not so much, they can't go to school of, course they could. It's the fact, the school is, shit scared of being sued for the slightest little, thing. In our sue for literally anything, world. Same with going to a football game etc, pitch is perfectly, playable, but God forbid, someone one slips, going to the match, and no doubt loads of other examples, too.

 

[EVsince2016]

Smaller schools lack the staff and have no caretaker to grit the site and make it safe.

Bigger schools with a caretaker tend to stay open, even if just for key workers & SEN kids.

Teachers also can live far away in areas of high housing costs so cannot get in. Not many teachers can afford to live in a Surrey Village for example.

 

[salty]

Smaller schools lack the staff and have no caretaker to grit the site and make it safe.

Bigger schools with a caretaker tend to stay open, even if just for key workers & SEN kids.

Teachers also can live far away in areas of high housing costs so cannot get in. Not many teachers can afford to live in a Surrey Village for example.

If you say, so.

 

[Archev]

If you say, so.

It had to happen-
MY school was at the top of a mountain under twenty feet of snow all year round and we had to take turns at janitoring for ourselves AND carry the teacher twenty miles in the middle of the night …….

 

[T1 Terry]

That's nothing, when living in box in middle of road, when it snowed, had to shovel road clear with teaspoon in our underwear, so the snow plough wouldn't wreck cardboard box house....

T1 Terry

 

[Ian Key]

Part of the problem with the closing of schools due to snow is that it used to be local schools for local people. Now they've shut the small schools and built huge ones the catchment area is so large that staff and pupils are no longer within walking distance and have to travel miles.

 

[Ian Key]

That's nothing, when living in box in middle of road, when it snowed, had to shovel road clear with teaspoon in our underwear, so the snow plough wouldn't wreck cardboard box house....

T1 Terry

Here's the original pre Monty Python sketch from the TV who show At Last The 1948 Show starring Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman.

 

[Archev]

Here's the original pre Monty Python sketch from the TV who show At Last The 1948 Show starring Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman.

Always worth another look

 

[tsedge]

Bloomin' Luxury, those tales are!

I am old enough to remember the great Torbay snow of 2018, with massive drifts of one to one and half inches. I was working in Cardiff and managed to get to within a mile of home on the bypass before I had to abandon my car. It wasn't until the following day I could dig it out and get it home.

We hunkered down for two whole days before the snow disappeared, living off whatever meagre provisions we had stored.

It is a tale that will be passed down the generations!

 

[Susanna]

@T1 Terry A box? A whole box? What luxury!! We had to share a thimble with 3 other families…….

 

[Susanna]

@Ian Key - maybe that is true for secondary schools, but primary schools are certainly very local and quite numerous where I live. The other reason for the much larger secondary schools is the enormous skill set required for the curriculum - many many more subjects than were taught when I was at school - so obviously more teaching staff means more students, or the ratio wouldn’t work. With the abundance of house building in so many places, schools have to be built to accommodate the new students moving in to the area. It’s a statutory requirement.

It’s just a shame that no such provision for healthcare appears to be on the horizon…..

 

[T1 Terry]

When I went to high school, I went from a primary school with 400 kids between 3rd class and 6th class, AB&C graded in each class and between 28 and 30 kids to a class/
High school, 1200 kids between 1st yr (grade 7 now) and 4th yr (Grade 10 now), 38 to 40 boys in each class and 10 levels, the bottom two levels were dedicated to keeping them entertain and off the street basically, by 3rd yr, the ones that weren't old enough to leave, worked with grounds keepers or trained to play soccer or rugby league ..... We did have the unbeatable rugby league team in all age categories in the interschool completions

But, out of the sardine packed classroom teaching method, a lot of computer programmers, major chain owning entrepreneurs from men's clothing to sports equipment to restaurants, trucking companies and even coffee shops. A heap of engineers, electricians, Uni students, teachers, mechanics, industrial fitters, coal miners, truck drivers and of course, enough labourers to keep the steel works running 3 shifts 7 days a week .... the rest went into the armed forces, security, Police and even organised crime ..... politicians and govt employees.

By the time I reached 4th yr, 5th yr and 6th yr were options, not for me though, the world held too many opportunities to do something really dumb

T1 Terry