July 1963 School Magazine

Brisbane Girl2' Grammar School Magazine

Brisbane· G-irls' Grammar School Magazine

July, 1963

July, 1963

The famous lakes were frozen over and local people went to the rescue of the swans, breaking-up a portion of the ice for them and, with the co-operation of bakery shops, supplying them with food. Even so, many died from exposure to the cold.. Perhaps the happ iest note was struck by the Lake District Ski Club, emerging with smiling faces from the Club hut, which was almost buried in drifting snow. (They had previous- ly dug a tunnel to the door!) But it was ideal weather for skiers! So this year, when we feel the breath of winter as we rise each morning from cosy beds, let us give a thought to a real Winter, and think how lucky we Queenslanders are! -HELEN PFEIFFER, IIIB.

BRR- BRR !!!!

Soon, Winter will be with us again. Once more, we shall chat about "shivering nights" and about "the big freeze," and watch the expected temperature predicted on the Television Weather Report drop down, down, down. But how far does it really go? Shouldn't we lucky Queenslanders with our "" Winter sunshine spare a thought for those who have endured the worst, most biting Winter of the Century?- the people of Europe? Regularly, my family receives a local weekly newspaper from relatives in the English Lake District, and week after week the story unfolds of a real winter, the most severe in living memory. Roads were blocked sometimes for weeks by huge snowdrifts, twenty feet deep. Snow-ploughs and snow- blowers toiled through many days and nights to clear the great burden of snow from roads and railways. Large trucks, cars, and trains were completely enveloped in the treacherous depths of snow and men worked ceaselessly to free trapped vehicles and animals, having unkowingly floundered into great . drifts . Marooned villages sent urgent messages for coal and food proVISions. These were brought in the only remaining form of transport able to do the task, by helicopter. Hay was also flown in by helicopter for starving sheep and cattle and the helicopter acted as an ambulance for seriously ill villagers stranded in the mountains. As all taps were frozen, water had to be carried by sledge, sometimes long distances, to the homes. An interesting news picture showed the children of a village school happily taking) buckets of their daily water from a Fire-Engine - the school's supply was frozen. In one classroom, sat a solitary small boy who was the only one in his class to brave the wintry conditions. Probably the most graphic picture was one depicting a few hardy mountain sheep, climbing up a snowdrift and peer- ing in at the second storey windows of a partially-buried farmhouse ! Some farmers, resembling Eskimos in their dress, were plodding down streets with their faithful dogs at heel, drivi:Qg their stricken sheep, many of which had been almost buried il1j the sea of snow, to the farmhouse, there, inside the warm stone houses, they would be fed and sheltered until better conditions prevailed. 26

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"WINTER WESTERLIES"

- KERRY JOHNS. VA.

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