By: Mike Petty / Cambridge Evening News
Skating on Parker’s Piece in February 1963 with the University Arms Hotel in the background. The final days of December 1962 saw heavy snowstorms and by early January, 400 workmen were fighting to keep traffic moving through snowdrifts. By 14 Juanuary there was skating on the Cam and people bike along the river to Grantchester. On 21st the city police station was turned into a temporary boarding house for 13 people cut off by a blizzard which piled snow into long drifts. Next day temperatures were so low that buses ground to a halt as their diesel pipes froze, as did the city’s water mains. By 29 January 1963, Parker’s Piece itself was under water when the snow finally melted.’
Reproduced with kind permission from the Museum of Cambridge from a book in their collection titled “Memory Lane Cambridge” by Mike Petty and published by Cambridge Evening News 1999, ISBN 1859831842.