AS 1962 passed into 1963, it was a frosty affair – with temperatures well below freezing, snow storms, and drifting.

But the traditional swim at Lee Dam, at Makinholes, near Todmorden, still went ahead, with 16 hardy swimmers taking the icy plunge.

It had taken five men with pick axes two hours to break the ice for the annual dip, which attracted 500 spectators, who shivered in a howling blizzard.

Air temperatures were minus 5, while the water was comparatively warm at 1 degree, and three of the swimmers managed to splash around for 20 minutes!

There was only one swimmer from Todmorden that year, though, 22-year-old Mrs Jean Godfrey, who lived in Co-operative Street.

As the cold claimed the lives of several old people in East Lancashire, local medical officers of health called on people to be good neighbours, and for milkmen to watch for warning signs of old folk in distress while delivering their daily pinta.

Plumbers in Blackburn were getting calls every 15 minutes about burst pipes, and the housing department had to repair 160 bursts in corporation houses across the borough over the festive period.

The 11 degrees of frost decimated the football league programme, with Blackburn Rovers’ derby at Blackpool called off, but Burnley’s game against Sheffield Wednesday was one of the 10 which survived.

Although the ground was frozen, it had a light covering of snow and the referee told manager Harry Potts and head groundsman Tommy Danns that the players would have no problems with the pitch when he arrived for an early morning inspection.

Groundsmen did, however, have to paint all the touchlines blue – as our picture, above, shows.

Club secretary Albert Maddox immediately contacted the railway stations and coach and bus HQs to put them on standby for fans.

The freezing weather proved a problem on the railways, and braziers had to be lit underneath water tanks on Blackburn station, though they were not very effective.

All but one remained frozen, and there was only a trickle out of that one.

In the photo, above, engine driver George Haworth, of Newton Street, Blackburn, stocks up the brazier in a bid to fill the 3,500 gallon tender of his engine before a run to Hellifield.

His fireman Dennis Ormerod, of Whittaker Street, Blackburn, can be seen climbing up to try and clear away ice.

During the last week of 1962, Blackburn highways department spread more than 600 tons of salt and ash mixture on the town’s icy roads, as well as 200 tons of salt, as temperatures plunged to 13 below freezing.

RAC patrols urged drivers to spend the New Year by the fireside, rather than venturing out to celebrate.