Snow and floods on the way as Britain prepares for another Ice Age.

 Snow and floods on the way as Britain prepares for another Ice Age. 

Oh well. You might have thought at some point that Britain would get another barrage of wintry snow and if you were to believe some people the weather will turn a distinctly whitish colour by the time you wake up on Sunday morning. As if the news could hardly have got any worse. But it's probably best if we get prepared for the white stuff since we haven't seen any evidence of snow since at least last winter. Then there was a brief visitation and just a mere sprinkling on roofs and some pavements but you'd have thought we'd get off lightly. Whatever your views on the subjects the snow is on its way.

The English weather is renowned for its frequent mentions by the British population at any time of the year but somehow in the light of everything else going on around us it won't really come as a major surprise. But we do love talking about the rain, the cold, the wind, perhaps the depressing unpredictability of it all and just hope that it all goes away as quickly as possible. Before long we'll be discussing the widespread presence of road gritters, snow on railway lines and utter chaos. 

The fact is though it may hang around for quite a while and while it does make for a welcome sight, all of that slush and ice that follows in its wake can leave us wishing that it would simply rain for the whole winter with just a few dry days thrown in for good measure. And yet tomorrow morning a nation of motorists may well found their cars buried deeply under thick mountains of snow, windscreen wipers caked in snow and tyres submerged by more of that melting white goo before carrying out shovels and cloths to get rid of it once and for all. 

And then we'll watch our precious children rush out to the local park, build their improvised toboggans which used to be tea trays, sliding joyously from the top of a hill and then to the bottom with an innocence and youthful enthusiasm that their parents are not supposed to share. It won't be long before those loving and doting mothers and fathers are joined by the neighbours and then the entire community. You can bet that the inevitable snowballs will be thrown indiscriminately at each other and snowmen will be constructed with all the architectural expertise kids normally display. 

Recently, there was the story of a dustman who was ludicrously sacked by his employers for deliberately knocking over a child's snowman. Oh, the tragedy and the mortification of this episode could hardly be understated. It's hard to know whether you should laugh or cry under the circumstances but the punishment here doesn't really seem to fit the crime. What next? Milkmen being fired for delivering the wrong milk and being heard to insult the good name of all cows. Inflammatory comments have been expressed about Hereford cows and those who come rattling around our neighbourhood at the crack of a dawn could be looking at certain suspension and confinement in a police cell. 

But the subject of snow takes you back to your first couple of years of infancy. It was November 1962 and weather forecasters across the country were giving us prior warnings about the imminent arrival of heavy snow, and quite literally, wheelbarrows of snow and more snow. So it was that on a morning shortly before Christmas 1962 the snows fell in torrential tons and truckloads. And it continued to snow continuously and persistently, never relenting for a single minute until eventually we surrendered to snow because that's what the winter of 1962 had presented us with.

You look back with some amusement but you were told by your mum that she had to get out to do some shopping regardless of those thick white flakes falling from the sky and settling on the roads, pavements and streets with stubborn insistence. Now what has to be remembered here is that you'd just been born and your mother was just trying to get some food for the evening meal and the rest of the week. This is where things fell down with almost disastrous consequences. 

In an understandable moment of absent-mindedneess your mum forgot that her new-born son was screaming his guts out, pleading for acknowledgement, bawling his eyes out and crying for what must have seemed the best part of that morning. The fact is that you had been completely forgotten about and by the time she had returned back to our North London flat, her new offspring wasn't there. You had been abandoned by your mum when quite clearly it wasn't her fault. Goodness only knows what the owner of the sweet shop where yours truly was, thought of this desertion by a still euphoric mother. 

Here was a first time mum with her first son in the middle of the most ferocious snowstorm since 1948, a storm that would last for months and months, day after day, week after week incessantly or seemingly so. You can probably see her in your mind's eye, my mum holding her arms out against the gusty, fiercely blustery winds, the slanting snow increasing in volume by the second and then gathering its forces on the ground for yet another return visit. 

It's well documented that the snows of 1962 would still be in evidence by the time of the first crocuses of spring 1963 and Britain was not only freezing but stuck under unfeasibly large igloos of snow. Your parents were trapped for the best part of three or four months, at their wits end and not quite knowing whether they'd ever see a road or street ever again without slush, snow or ice. But the resilience of the British population was such that we did battle our way through the white forests that had now sprung up all over the country and we could all break into a watery smile.  

Tomorrow though the forecasters are predicting that Britain will have to brace itself for a white lockdown which hardly seems the right description for the wintry climate. Lockdown now refers to a global pandemic but if you do open your front door and are suddenly bombarded by energetic kids chucking more snowballs at you, you'll just have to puff out your cheeks and just go with the flow. It'll only be here temporarily and besides it's pretty, decorative, and in some European countries, traditional. 

However folks, it'll be time to batten down your hatches and just admire the typically Christmas picture- postcard scenery because you do know that things will just grind to a halt. Hold on didn't things grind to a halt last March so it'll be just business as usual? The fluctuating temperatures of the British climate are just a constant source of debate and nothing will shock us about the snow. We've been there, got the T-shirt and the mug so hold on tight everybody.