Chapter 1
Of Icicles and Newspaper

The winter of 1947 lives on in many minds as a time of extreme cold. In later years people would analyse the reasons and make political propaganda of it. In the cosiness of a country unravaged by war they would forget how we had to rebuild after the effects of bombs and lack of resources caused by torpedoes. But to the four year old boy that I was the lasting impression is that the world was white. Later as the snow and ice thawed it became grimy with melt water polluted by smoke from a million coal fires.

It was only two years after the end of the Second World War and provisions were hard to come by. The number of power cuts is a mystery to me, but I remember there were many, and it was only in the miners' strike at the time of the Heath government that I was to realise the magnitude of the hardships we encountered. Many memories have been erased from me by the passage of time. But that only serves to heighten the sense of those I remember.

As well as indoor plumbing, our house had an outside toilet with a wooden door that let in the weather. In that cold winter it was hopeless trying to use it, frozen solid as it was and with icicles taller than I. But throughout the winter the sheets of torn newspaper hung on their string waiting for the first brave foray into its austere comfort. It was not only coal that was in short supply - real toilet paper was reserved for indoors! When boots were dirty with mud or snow we were discouraged from going in and out too often.