Jim Greenhalf looks back at how Bradford fared as Britain faced 76 days of below-zero temperatures in the early months of 1963 ifty years ago, Bradford, like virtually the whole of Britain, was in the grip of the worst winter weather since 1947. It started in mid-December, got considerably worse on Boxing Day and, with several minor breaks, went on until March 6.

It was but 76 days and nights of sub-zero temperatures, snowdrifts, icy stalactites, burst pipes, power cuts, restricted public transport and no football or rugby.

Nationwide, more than 30 people died, among them 62-year-old William Bailey of Lower Pikely Farm, Allerton, whose body was dug out of a nine-foot snowdrift by four ambulancemen on Monday, January 21.

Only two days earlier on Saturday January 19, T&A columnist Paul Greenwood said everybody seemed to be “grumbling” about the weather. “But at least we haven’t had any very heavy snow falls – so far,” he added. That night strong winds brought snow clouds and the landscape changed, as these pictures show.

In 1963, Bradford Metropolitan District did not exist. Bradford had its own council, as did Shipley, Bingley, Keighley and other areas. Unitary authorities ruled, which meant that local areas looked after themselves on the occasion of floods, blocked roads and snowdrifts.

On Friday, March 1, the 70th day of what the T&A called The Big Freeze, Bradford Corporation’s snow bill was reportedly £116,000 – at least four times more than normal. Keighley had spent £41,000 on snow clearing and Shipley Urban District Council at least £11,000.

According to the Telegraph & Argus, these colossal costs excluded the bill for repairing burst pipes, repairing roads and resetting pavements disrupted by burst water mains.

Nationally, unemployment soared. By January 23, with the effects of the weather across all eight columns of the front page of the T&A, unemployment stood at 814,632. Lay-offs in the building industry and reductions in power were attributed to the huge rise on the December jobless figure of 566,000.

Bad as it was, unemployment hadn’t reached the bad weather peak of February, 1947, when it hit 1,874,000.

Under feet of snow were more feet of frost-hardened ground. This caused an unexpected crisis in the nation’s fish and chip shops, with the cost of potatoes rising rapidly from £5 to £8 a ton – three shillings (15p) a stone.

On January 7, Harry Sagar, secretary of the Bradford & District Fish Friers Association, said: “It is a very difficult time. You get the increased commodity costs at a time when turnover is at its lowest. This makes it a double blow. In this kind of weather people have less inclination to turn out at nights.”

That was also the day the T&A reported the death of Bradford’s biggest frier of fish and chips – Harry Ramsden.

The former taxi-driver and owner of the Craven Heifer in Bolton Road, was 74. After the First World War, he had borrowed £200 from his sister to open his first chippie off Manchester Road. In 1942 he opened Harry Ramsden’s in a wooden shed at White Cross, Guiseley – now a link in the Wetherby Whaler fish and chip chain of restaurants.

January 7 was also the day when Bradford City hoped to play Newcastle United at Valley Parade in the third round of the FA Cup. The match didn’t seem likely to take place.

Nine miles of snow-covered ground eastwards, Don Revie looked out at the Elland Road pitch and saw a “sea of ice”. Over in Manchester, Matt Busby, the manager of Manchester United, saw the same picture when he looked out over the pitch at Old Trafford, where United were due to play Huddersfield Town in the FA Cup third round.

“The pitch is nearly all ice following a freeze-up after a slight thaw. If anything conditions are worse than they were on Saturday,” Busby said.

For the best part of 11 weeks, rugby and football were brought to a standstill. National Hunt horse racing was also crippled, with more than 90 meetings cancelled. There was no racing at all in England between December 23 and March 7.

The football season was extended by three weeks to mop up the backlog of fixtures. But without a ball being kicked anywhere, nor the prospect of a game being played for weeks to come, the football pools companies came up with the ingenious idea of the Pools Panel.

On January 26, in London’s Connaught Rooms, flamboyant Conservative MP Sir Gerald Nabarro – a regular on the BBC Home Service’s Any Questions? programme on Friday nights – sat down with former professional footballers George Young, Tom Finney, Tommy Lawton and Ted Drake and referee Arthur Ellis to judge the likely outcome of home and away matches in England and Scotland. Points were awarded for a score draw, goalless draw and away win.

According to the football fanzine When Saturday Comes: “...their decision was so important that the BBC would break into Grandstand with a televised announcement from the Connaught Rooms, but these days the Panel – Gordon Banks, Roger Hunt and Tony Green – spend their Saturday afternoons locked in a solicitor’s office in Liverpool.”

Bradford City’s cup game against Newcastle eventually got played on Thursday night, March 7, City running out losers on a very muddy pitch 6-1 to the Tynesiders. The full league programme resumed on the Saturday.

The Big Freeze – the name was reminiscent of a Raymond Chandler thriller – with its consecutive sunless days, bitter cold and pavements of hardened snow or slush was its own kind of cold war.

The political version between the USA, Britain, West Germany and the USSR, had climaxed with the Cuba missile crisis in October the previous year. But 1963 was a landmark year for spy scandals in the UK.

In the winter, homosexual Admiralty clerk John Vassall, entrapped and well rewarded by the KGB, stood trial behind closed doors for spying for the Russians. Nevertheless, rumours of what had been going on leaked out, to the detriment of the weakening Conservative Government of Harold Macmillan.

The end for Macmillan came later in the year following the sensational trial of society osteopath and occasional portrait painter of the great and good, Stephen Ward, accused of living off immoral earnings.

It was a convoluted story that involved Secretary of State for War John Profumo, Soviet diplomat Yevgeny Ivanov and call girls Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice Davies. Ward’s suicide before the trial ended led to the suspicion of a frame-up.

The man of the moment was Harold Wilson, the leader of the Labour Party. But he only got the position following the death of 56-year-old Hugh Gaitskell.

On January 19, a cold and snowy Saturday, the T&A reported the news, drawing tributes from Bradford MPs, trades union leaders and the Lord Mayor, Alderman H K Watson, who said: “It was only recently that I was talking to him in the Lord Mayor’s parlour during his last visit to Bradford, and I was most impressed by his charm and his evident sincerity in the things he talked about.”

After the Big Freeze came the big thaw and flooding. On March 5, the morning temperature of 6.4C recorded at Lister Park was the highest since December 16 and ten degrees warmer than the previous day.

As snow and ice melted, scores of roads were inundated with an overload of water up to 3ft deep in places. The River Wharfe rose by 8ft.

On March 8, the T&A’s Spotlight On The Motoring World column warned that hundreds of tons of rock salt and sand on the roads were corroding the paintwork of cars.

“It’s done thousands of pounds worth of damage. And the snag is there’s so much of it still about on the roads.” The answer? Thoroughly wash and wipe down bodywork regularly.

Of all the 76 days of the Big Freeze in 1963, one of the most extraordinary was Monday, February 11. On that day, round about 10am, four young men arrived at London’s Abbey Road recording studios. More than 12 hours and ten songs later, The Beatles had recorded Please, Please Me – their first LP.