Snow arrived on Boxing Day 1962, and swept the country. The sea froze off the coast of Kent, and someone drove a car along the River Thames.
January 1963 was the coldest month of the 20th century at −19°C at Achany in Sutherland, whilst winds reached force eight and drifts topped 20ft.
Farms and estates throughout the Borders were badly hit, and concerns grew for the safety of isolated families. One such estate was Byrecleugh on Dye Water, to the west of Longformacus. Tom Hislop was the gamekeeper and lived with wife Hannah and their children, Janet, Moira and John.
Byrecleugh was cut off for seven weeks, and during the early period when conditions were at their worst, a helicopter was dispatched to deliver supplies. The date of the drop was January 9, 1963, and Moir,a who was 11 at the time, remembers the excitement.
She now lives in Callander and told The Southern: “I’m not sure how we found out, but we certainly knew about a week in advance and had to dig a massive landing area in the hay field in front of the house. We all had to help, myself included. None of the children had ever seen a helicopter and we stood patiently for its arrival. We watched it land and they gave us tins and fresh fruit to keep us going as we didn’t know when we would be able to get out again. We had our pictures taken with the boxes of food, and I remember everyone waving goodbye to the helicopter. It’s a memory that lives with me to this day, and whenever it snows I think of that time.”
Whilst everyone was grateful for the foodstuffs, the situation hadn’t been as bad as initially thought.
Moira explained: “We had a cow called Sabrina so we always had milk to drink. We also had hens so there was no shortage of eggs, and mum always had flour in, so she would bake scones, so we weren’t at the point of starving. We were blocked in for seven weeks before it started to clear, so the tins did come in handy.”
As conditions improved, the families were able to travel on foot to Longformacus for necessities. The 14-mile round trip didn’t bother her, but the walk through the village did.
She told us: “Just before my 12th birthday, I persuaded dad to take me to Longformacus. When we reached the village I was petrified to walk past the school in case the teacher, Mrs Nye, saw me and dragged me in, so I hid behind dad. Luckily she never spotted me so I had an extra few days off.”
The following week, on March 6, the Borders woke to the first morning for almost three months without frost.
Things returned to normal, but 50 years on, no-one who was there has forgotten the day the helicopter arrived at Byrie.