MarkW

Crikey, a year ago this thread stopped. I wonder if we will get the same on 7th December 2017.....probably not.

Funnily enough, I do not remember this at all. I lived in London, and do not remember any significant snow fall other than December 1995 or January 2003.

I was 13/14 in 85/86, so perhaps memories are a bit sketchy, but I tend to remember a lot via football matches from the time. Feb 1986 was very cold. I seem to remember early Jan was cold (some football was postponed). 90/91 I remember much better, especially the West Midlands blizzards.

Dear all, my third post. I saw an archived thread by a poster called 'Walsall Wood' and decided to reply - here it is. I remember as a child then teenager, the winters were quite bad. Snow in November wasn't unknown, and there were certainly heavy frosts. In late November 1985, we were sent home early from school as it began snowing around 2pm. I'm an Albion fan, and we were playing Villa at home in a Milk Cup replay that night. The snow came down in a blizzard and although it stopped at 5, it did start again around 7.....but that match stayed on. We lost 1-2, but I remember the orange ball coming out (you do not see these much now). Jan/Feb 1986 was bitterly cold and I remember shivering at many a game or school PE lesson outdoors! The orange ball came out again in an away game at Birmingham City in early Feb. I seem to remember games were called off. Early Feb also saw blizzards. These are what I remember. I posted about the Dec 1990 snow storm elsewhere.

As Walsall Wood Snow says, this didn't really hit the Midlands that much. I was 15, living in Tipton. I remember the news in the morning, vaguely. I must have taken notice of it; after school , I travelled down to Swansea to see a girl I had met during the Summer on holiday - and was looking out for damage. The Birmingham New Street to Cardiff train passed through Worcesteshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Gwent en route to Glamorgan. I only saw a handful of trees that were down. The S/West Mids and Wales also got off lightly. However, I know people in London (I worked with) and they've told me of the destruction in the Wimbledon, Roehampton and New Malden areas. One former work colleague found her back garden shed in the street at the front of her house, surrounded by downed trees.

I remember this very vividly as an 18 year old. I was living in Tipton with my parents at the time and had just begun a new job in Tividale as a Lab Assistant. I had plenty of disposable cash so on the Friday night I headed out to the local shangri-la that was Bentley's Wine Bar, Dudley.My memory is a little sketchy of the early part of the evening. I remember it was very cold ( it had been frosty on and off for a couple of weeks or so) and I had brought a new winter coat which I wore that night. Some of my mates didn't bother; they were just in ordinary shirts. As you do. By midnight it was cold and there were flakes of snow beginning to fall as we left the bar. It hadn't stuck by then and had been falling for about 30 mins at that point. We all got into a taxi and headed a couple of miles down the road to an Indian Restaurant we used to use (in Great Bridge). The journey took 10 minutes, but by then the snow flakes were larger and beginning to stick. We came out of the restaurant about 1.30 and it was whited over everywhere and very cold. I walked back home through that eerie silence you get when snow is sticking. It was also starting to swirl around as the wind started to strengthen. I went to bed when I got in (around 2am). The following morning I woke to 3-4 foot drifts outside. What had been a thick dusting turned into a blizzard over night. There was chaos on the roads and railways. West Bromwich Albion's home game v Portsmouth was called off in the morning. I vividly remember watching Blackadder Goes Forth that morning as the snow settled ( I taped it the night before- it was a re run from the previous year). I also vividly remember The Farm being high in the charts with "Altogether Now"- the song about the Christmas Truce in 1914. The song was obviously being played on the radio a lot at the time. I may be wrong about some things, but these are my memories from that night. The following day the stranded people on the M6, M42 and A45 made the news. Postcript: I now live in Bentley Heath, near Knowle, photographed above. It is very cold here this evening - -4.