After such massive local coverage the previous week, and with the nation now gripped in what occasionally seemed like a permanent blizzard, you might have expected loads more about the white stuff in the next Falmouth Packet, published on February 7, 1947.
Not so.
The only front page reference to one of the area’s biggest weather events of any century was the description of the hills surrounding Falmouth harbour as still “mantled in snow” as a severe gale caused havoc afloat.
Inside the six-page broadsheet edition, there was just this little collection of miscellaneous follow-ups:--
Between 50 and 60 residents of Manaccan took part in winter sports in a field at Glebe Farm yesterday and today week. Improved sledges and surf boards were in great demand.
Not quickly forgotten will be the spectacle of a skier travelling through Helford at speed. A resident took the opportunity to keep his hand in at the sport.
At Gweek, banks of the Helford River were frozen and large sheets of ice were seen floating in the salt water. Many villagers walked to Helston (some four miles) to obtain their meat ration. Eggs were found frozen inside their shells.
In Woodlane, Falmouth, an unsuspecting pedestrian stepped off the pavement where it was at its highest – and found himself breast-deep in a snow drift.
And that was all. So the assumption is that there was no further significant snowfall in the week following that first spectacular carpeting of the Falmouth-Penryn area.
Amazingly, the Packet didn’t carry a single photo of the snowy local scene in those first two editions – nor, in fact, throughout the whole devastating period nationwide from January 22 to March 17, when snow fell every day somewhere in the UK.
So how did Falmouth-Penryn fare for the rest of that historic chapter? Watch this space!
* See blog dated Saturday 20 January 2024
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