Despite it not quite being a full week since our last update, we are happy to announce the addition of 119,672 new pages to The Archive. After a bumper Christmas crop of new pages, we have updates to two of our existing titles, Wexford publication the New Ross Standard, and Reach plc (Trinity Mirror) title the Cheshire Observer. Both updates cover the twentieth century, whilst the New Ross Standard extends into the twenty-first century, with pages spanning the years between 1911 and 2005.

In this week’s blog post, we take a look back at one of the coldest winters of modern times with the help of our recently added titles. The winter of 1962-1963 was one of the coldest winters on record in the United Kingdom, with some areas facing low temperatures not seen since the winter of 1814. Snow set in on Boxing Day 1962, with blizzards following in the ensuing days, and by January 1963 the cold weather had set in with an average temperature of -2.5 degrees recorded.

The Cheshire Observer chronicles the consequences of the freeze. One of the main results was that football matches were delayed, with an article reporting on the 12 January that the ‘freeze-up at Chester Stadium’ meant that the referee decided that the game with Oldham Athletic could not be played. This spurred some questioning of whether the game should become a summer sport, or whether there should be a ‘close down for a period of two months in mid-winter.’

Cheshire Observer | 19 January 1963

Above: Chester manager Bill Lambton, accompanied by his two children Jill (4) and Steven (3), clears the snow at Chester Stadium

 The Cheshire Observer reports on the 12 January that the River Dee had frozen over, but not enough to support the weight of any people. Elsewhere across the country rivers froze, with the second fasted flowing river in Britain, the River Arun in West Sussex, freezing over at its estuary in Littlehampton for the first time in living memory. Indeed, the sea even froze, with ice on the sea reported at Torquay, whilst at Herne Bay in Kent the sea froze for a stretch of a mile. At the Thames at Oxford, a car was driven over the frozen water, whilst lorry fuel oil turned to ice.

Coventry Evening Telegraph | 12 January 1963

A brief thaw occurred on 25 January, however by February more snow had arrived with further blizzards. It was not until March that the freeze of 1963 ended, with temperatures reaching a more seasonable 17 degrees.

UPDATED TITLES

This week we have updated two of our recently added titles.

You can learn more about each of the titles we add to every week by clicking on their names. On each paper’s title page, you can read a FREE sample issue, learn more about our current holdings, and our plans for digitisation.

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You can keep up to date with all the latest additions by visiting the recently added page.  You can even look ahead to see what we’re going to add tomorrow.