‘A few inches of snow in November? It’s child’s play compared to 1963’s Big Freeze’

Fleet Street legend and Mirror columnist, Paul Routledge, sends gentle tales from his West Yorkshire allotment, Mrs R’s pantry and his local, the Old White Bear. This week, Paul is surprised to see his hometown has made the national weather forecast

I KNEW something was up when Keighley suddenly appeared on the BBC national weather map. My suspicions were confirmed next day when Hebden Bridge was also rescued from meteorological obscurity.

These Pennine towns rarely make Look North, never mind the national forecast, but now they’re famous.

Why? Snow was coming! You know, the white stuff that comes down from grey clouds and stops the trains running. You must remember it from childhood. The Beeb warned of five to 10 centimetres falling on high ground. Engaging with my British History Rulers wooden ruler, that’s just under my little finger to a handful.

That’s potentially serious here in Cross Hills, altitude 528ft, rising to 1,131ft on Earl Crag. We’ve been cut off before today. But it’s years since we had any proper snow, and people blame climate change.

Er, sorry. Climate is what they have darn sarf. We have weather, sometimes more than we can consume.

The snow came on schedule, but it was a poor show. An inch or so fell, offering pretty Christmas card scenes. It didn’t settle on roads or pavements. They had it much worse further south.

But for those of us who endured the Big Freeze of 1963 and horrors of 1947 when I was a nipper, this was just playing at it. Mrs R, who hates the stuff, was mightily relieved, though she has happy childhood memories of playing out in the cold.

Winter fuel payments should be going out now to millions of pensioners. But the Budget put paid to that for most, while gas and electricity prices are set to rise again.

And we’re not yet in December. On with that extra layer! Mrs R is already in her Scandi-style jumper.

WHEN did men in this country stop wearing hats? I don’t mean American baseball caps, set backwards to make the wearer look even more stupid. Nor the natty pork-pie variety favoured by pop singers, presumably to disguise their retreating hair lines.

Nor even the flat ’at, once ubiquitous in the North but also a feature of working class communities anywhere. And certainly not the fancy version worn by the huntin’ ’n’ shootin’ fraternity. No, I mean the trilby, which was almost part of the white-collar worker’s uniform.

My father Harry, a railway clerk, wouldn’t have been seen dead out in the street bareheaded. Some even wore their hats at home, and certainly in the pub or club. They were a badge of respectability. I’m reminded of this hat-lore viewing 1960s films. You can tell the goodies from the baddies by their headgear: detectives wore trilbies and the villains either nowt or a scruffy cap.

These days, nobody wears a proper hat. Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh, often sported the real thing, and so did a certain class of Tory MP. So when did UK Man go head-naked? It was a slow process after the Second World War, that peaked in the Swinging Sixties, when young men would be embarrassed to be seen wearing their father’s titfer. Change also coincided with the rise in car ownership. Hats got in the way behind the wheel.

I’ve never worn a hat, except the hideous cap for Normanton Grammar School, but I can see they did bestow a certain prestige. And what of the work suit? Will that go the way of the trilby? Indeed, has it gone already, led by jean-clad tech billionaires?