I really can't believe it. Here in the northwest of England last night we had our fair share of this winter's first proper fall of snow over mainland Britain. Fair enough, according to our climate it should happen at least twice each winter, and I appreciate that some areas can potentially get hit very hard. But here in the Manchester region we had at best (or worst, depending on your viewpoint) just two inches of snow, and an overall average of just one inch. What annoys me is the number of Schools that had to be closed, sections of our main roads and Motorways closed off, and all because of a silly little one inch sprinkling of snow!
When I was a kid (in Leicestershire) I can remember walking through snow up to knee high on my way to School during the two bad winters of the early and late 1960's ('64 and '68 I think, certainly the latter involved a much longer walk across town), and I thought nothing of it other than a challenge. The local schools remained open, no matter what the weather, and absenteeism was often even lower than normal. What's happened to the kids these days, are they really that scared of a little bit of snow?
No, my view is that today's lazy British teachers take a look out of the window first thing in the morning and see a bit of sleeting snow and then phone the Headteacher, who has already had a couple of phone calls from 'concerned parents' claiming they can't get their cars off the driveway (conveniently not mentioning it's only a patch of ice!). The school is then declared 'Closed For The Day', and everyone goes back to bed for a lie-in and a seemingly valid day off work!
I'm not really that sceptical am I? Or is it that I'm becoming a realist as I get older?
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3 comments:
I know what you mean about todays wimps!
When I were a lad (1947)I had to to trudge through 2ft of snow at least 1 1/2 miles to school and back. I wasn't allowed time off, and as you say the shops and businesses carried on as normal.
Grump! Grump!
Yes, the winter of early 1964 (I think) was f.....g awful ...lots and lots of snow ~ looked pretty though in the sunshine.
Now at the first sign of snow, the heads declare the schools are closed due to "boiler failure" (so they can all have a bit longer in bed) :)
I was born in 1947, and the older generation all say that 1947 was the worst in their memory.
"Boiler Failure", yes that's true, and I guess is probably the next excuse on the list. Apparently this one was down to a Health & Safety issue in that the schools were closed because of the risk of someone slipping on the snow/ice and hurting themselves! For goodness sake - when I was a kid part of the fun of Winter was sliding around on the snow/ice! (HSE gone over the top!)
I missed the 1947 Winter (I was born in 1955) but my father mentioned it a few times. However he did mention much more often about when it snowed in the middle of Summer! (These were typical of his often repartee style comments; which also included when he saw it raining on one side of the street, yet the pavement on the other side was still dry!).
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