In March, 1963, there was only one topic of conversation – the weather.

Since late December the length and breadth of Britain had been subjected to snow drifts and sub-zero temperatures. Day after day, week after week, people woke up shivering to yet another icy morning and a problematic journey to work or to school.

By the time the worst winter since 1947 relented on March 6, more than 70 days of frost had been recorded and Bradford City Council had spent £116,000 on snow clearance. The councils of Shipley, Keighley and Bingley had their own overspends on snow clearance.

A rise in temperature merely added another set of problems. The T&A’s front page picture story showed areas under water as flooding followed the thaw.

Hundreds of roads in the North were up to three feet under water. Pipes burst, drains and road surfaces were badly damaged as people, accustomed to being cold and wet, gritted their teeth and got on with clearing up the aftermath.

Sport, which had been frozen out of existence, began to revive. Bradford Park Avenue’s Third Division game against Peterborough was played and ended 2-2, with Park Avenue retrieving a situation that seemed lost in the first half.

Bradford City’s 13th attempt to play their FA Cup third round match against Newcastle United went ahead on the night of Thursday, March 7. On a mudbath of a pitch City slid out of the competition 6-1.

The next time Bradford experienced winter snows as bad as that was 16 years later in 1979 in the aptly named Winter of Discontent, which presaged a change of political power in Westminster with the arrival of Margaret Thatcher as the first Tory Prime Minister since Sir Alec Douglas Home in 1964.