Posted by Owen Roberts on January 04, 2013 at 16:01:19 user OwenRoberts.
In Reply to: Re: Winter Holiday 1939 posted by Peter Hyland on January 04, 2013 at 09:32:52:
Certainly I can concur that the winter of 1947 was a long lasting freeze. Unlike Peter do not remember being particularly cold except first thing in the morning/ my bedroom had that perfect playing surface - lino - but it was cold to the feet. Damaged several soft toys sliding on the lino. Once the fire was lit then the room temperature was fine.
Never seemed to be short of coal but my father knew the local coal merchant well.
Derwentwater is usually the first lake to freeze completely as it is the shallowest overall. It last froze over in 2010.
It was obviously well known to AR, he gave two postcards of Derwentwater to his illustrator, Clifford Webb, for S&A to show how Darien and the hills generally should look. One can speculate as to how much other material for the books lies round Derwentwater - Beckfoot perhaps?
Lovely picture to find as a bookmark – the best I found in an AR books was a couple of tickets from Glasgow’s long departed tramway system.