"snow"

snow, in addition to presenting a seemingly endless chore in terms of its removal, holds something of a romantic grip on me through its association with england. i can still recall my first memory of the sighting of snow as i sat in a classroom in second form at st. george’s school in altrincham. the teacher let us leave our desks and rush to the window to watch it fall and settle on church street below - absolutely unheard of!

henry wadsworth longfellow (seen here looking a little intense and tight around the eyes!) - an american - held something of a similar relationship with snow i think as is evinced in his poem "snowflakes":

snowflakes

out of the bosom of the air
out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
over the woodlands brown and bare,
over the harvest-fields forsaken,
silent, and soft, and slow
descends the snow.

even as our cloudy fancies take
suddenly shape in some divine expression,
even as the troubled heart doth make
in the white countenance confession
the troubled sky reveals
the grief it feels.

this is the poem of the air,
slowly in silent syllables recorded;
this is the secret of despair,
long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
now whispered and revealed
to wood and field.

henry wadsworth longfellow (1807-1882)

for reasons i can't source out beyond some sort of romantic connection with an england long gone - an england i connect with some features of my childhood - i love seeing old images of snow in the pennines and north yorkshire moors. here’s a lovely image from the winter of 1963 taken in the colourfully named hamlet of "winewall" . . .
on the subject of the winter of 1963, i was trolling the depths of the british film archives when i came across this short film shot by the less than prolific but very clever geoffrey jones. jones’ two most famous films “snow” and “rail” are outstanding examples of editing and juxtaposition. for example in “snow” you will see a sequence of clips of the tough-as-nails railworkers shovelling out tonnes of snow and then the camera flashes over to the passengers as they tuck into tea and scones in the buffet car, almost oblivious to the appalling deep-freeze on the other side of the window.

as the train travels faster and faster through a snow covered, english landscape, it is accompanied by a dated but complimentary soundtrack that mimics in its rhythm, the rhythm of the film itself. “snow” was nominated for the short documentary oscar in 1965.

jones died in 2005. the guardian's obituary suggests that few have achieved so much with so little” in reference to the astonishing fact that jones’ entire output over half a century amounted to less than ninety minutes of film.

to read more about the extraordinary winter of 1963, derby sulzers maintains a page on which stories of nasty winters and their effect on rail service in england are told in detail. the entry for 1963 can be found by scrolling down the page. it is worth the effort for those who love to see life as it was fourty five years ago in england, this film will bring back many memories.