Snow: The most dangerous thing this side of the Alps
As the UK starts to recover from the recent snowy weather Ben Clatworthy takes at look at the British reaction to snow.
Snow, neige, nevar, sneeuw, or however you say it is very much a factor of winter weather. In fact, each year 1.27 million Britons up-sticks and head to the mountains all in a quest to find snow.
In the past week the UK has been brought to a standstill as people battle with freezing temperatures, heavy snow and treacherous ice. More than 8,000 schools were closed across the country, including the whole of Clifton College, as a result of the extreme weather. The closures meant that around 230,000 pupils were given the day off school and the perfect opportunity to head out and play in the snow.
The snow really went to the heads of newspaper and television companies as pages and pages, or hours and hours of coverage were given to the snow. On Wednesday night the BBC were left with hours of blank schedule after the League Cup semi-final between Manchester United and Manchester City was called off. How did they fill it? Well half an hour was given to a ‘BBC News Special: The Big Freeze’ – anyone would have thought we were in for an ice age. Many would say they were trying just that bit too hard.
If you watched the BBC at all that day, I would totally forgive you if you were left, stranded indoors, scared, shaking and fearing for your life; they made out snow was the most dangerous, horrible, life-threatening thing that the UK had ever seen.
Supermarkets went without deliveries, thousands of pints of milk were reported to have gone to waste as milkmen and lorries were unable to provide houses and shops and there is no doubt about it that people went panic buying. On Saturday Waitrose was completely out of normal milk with dwindling supplies of bread and vegetables.
Fun for some
Snowy road in Bristol
Oblivious to the state of emergency scores of children happily played on every green-space with snowmen dotted across the Downs in Bristol and in front gardens everywhere. It’s been a very fun time for children and grown-ups alike who were unable to make it to work. 14% of the UK workforce was reported to have stayed at home on Wednesday 7 January costing the economy £0.5 billion per day.
But questions are being provoked as people ask whether schools were right or wrong to close and if they should have made more effort to stay open. An unnamed primary school teacher in Bristol told me over the weekend, “Bristol Local Authority wouldn’t execute a ‘blanket closure’ of schools and instead just gave schools a single-lined telephone number to call and give details of closure.”
With more snow expected in the coming days these unanswered questions could lead to further disruption.
Ben used information from the BBC, The Evening Standard, The Guardian and the Ski Club of Great Britain to compile this article
