BRITAIN IN GRIP OF WINTER

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5317, 1 February 1947, Page 5

BRITAIN IN GRIP OF WINTER

(Press Assn.-

cana'ls & rivers frozen CORNWALL'S HEAVHEST SNOW . SINCE 1891

—Rec. 9.30 p.m.)

LONDON, Jan. 31. Because of tke wintry weather His Majesty the King cancelled the semi-State drive from Buckingham Palace to Waterloo Station, where the Royal Family begin their journey to South Africa. Though a fitful sun warmed parts of England by a few degrees the whole country is still gripped in a great freeze-up and is deprived of gas and -electricity by the biggest cuts ever imposed. Thousands of . London households went without breakfasts. Two elderly people in Norfolk died from the cold on the hearth of their home and three more deaths from the cold have been. reported from France where poor Parisians, shivering in fuelless houses, have trudged to the underground stations seeking comparative warmth. The ice-choked River Rhine has halted shipping and coal barges are frozen on the canals of northen France. Nearly a foot of snow fell at Falmouth, where' snow is a rare phenomenon. People had to dig a way out of their houses through drifts four feet deep. Snowfalls in West Cornwall were the- heaviest since the great blizzard of 1891. The schools in Brighton have been closed. until February 3 owing tcfrozen pipes and the laek of adequate heating. Many Londoners who warmed a shovelful of snow over the feeble open fires to get water for shaving and washing, read in the early editions of the afternoo-n newspapers a warning from the National Plumbers' Federation that there may not be ■enough lead to go round when the thaw brings the inevitable crop of burst water pipes. Railroads sent out snowploughs to clear the main lines and in the blizzard„ in. the Plymouth area a driver and fireman had to dig their engine out of a snowdrift. Milk roundsmen in Kent, where 34 degrees of frost was recorded, delivered bottles of frozen milk. The mercury in a thermometer near Canterbury disappeared into the bulb and near Ramsgate a man was photG-graphed walking on the. sea. The Evening Standard comments: "It is a long time since anyone has done this." Royal Party's First Step _ Tovvard African Tour LONDON, January 31. The King ancl Queen and the Princesses leave London to-day for Portsmcuth to join the H.M.S. Vanguard on which they will journey to South Africa. Thcusands of people, who wanted to see them off, have been disappointed by the decision enforced by the weather that the drive from Buckingham Palace to Waterloo Station will be in a closed car instead of by State coach. London's weather experts predict that Britain's freeze-up, now in its ninth day, may end to-morrow with a general thaw. Temperatures are already a little higher though still below freezing point, except in the Scilly Isles ancl part of north Seotland. i There are reports of more snow on most parts of southern England. The coldest spots during* the niglit were the two trans-Atlantic air bases, Prestwick ancl Shannon, whei*e 15 degrees of frost were reg'istered.