People are reading all sorts of significance into dates at the minute, thanks to the impending Millennium.

So when it started snowing yesterday, I had a quick look at the last serious snow we had.

Yes - it was just 20 years ago.

Yesterday's weather brought a certain amount of disruption but it didn't last long.

1979 was a different story. And if you put any faith in the mystic significance of dates, stop reading now. I'd hate to upset you.

It started with a minor blizzard in mid-January - nothing too serious, just a few stuck cars and a flurry of complaints about the lack of gritters.

February 15 was a different story. It was a Thursday (for some reason heavy snow seems to favour Thursdays) and the snow started just before lunchtime. The forecast had warned of heavy falls and it was spot on. By lunchtime the sky had taken on that ugly, yellowish colour which is usually a sign of heavy-duty snow. It clearly wasn't going to stop and by two o'clock the first signs that something out of the ordinary was happening were coming in to the T&A.

Many people quit work early to try to avoid traffic problems.

Unfortunately this in itself became a traffic problem. People working in Bradford tend to leave for home anywhere between 4.20 and 6.30. When they all start trying to set off at about 2.30, with snow starting to lie on the roads, a deadlock is unavoidable.

By 4.30, thanks to its hilly geography, Bradford was like a town under siege in reverse - everybody was trying to get out. The only flat way out - along Manningham Lane - became blocked precisely because it was the only flat way out. Heading south was impossible; heading north soon became impossible, too. Optimists decided to brave a long wait in their cars. Pessimists - who turned out to be realists - decided to sit it out wherever they could - preferably somewhere warm.

Bradford's pubs and hotels did a roaring trade. They never closed - they couldn't because they were full of stranded people. Blankets were found, coats and even copies of the T&A were wrapped around dozing commuters who settled down for the night on floors, benches, chairs. Bradford's police station took in more than the usual number of non-paying guests.

At what would have been teatime, the police declared the M62 a disaster area. By mid-evening they were struggling to rescue trapped drivers, and turning back those foolish enough to believe they could cross the Pennines.

Twenty travellers plucked from their vehicles were suffering from exposure.

Meanwhile train services (in these days it was British Rail) were in chaos, and BR bosses tried to maintain a skeleton service between Bradford, Leeds, Keighley, Ilkley and Manchester - with some success, it has to be said.

Some children and teachers at Tong School had to spend the night there.

The following day looked like the aftermath of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. Snowdrifts cut off places like Wilsden and Harden.

Snowploughs battled to get Bradford to work (and to get some Bradford workers home to bed).

The Dales were blocked off and roads across the high ground were blocked.

It was generally reckoned to be the worst blizzard in living memory (1947 had been a worse winter, but not so dramatic).

Then, as experts wondered whether we were entering another ice age and strange new phrases like 'global warming' were being bandied about, it did it all again in March!

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.