And it's not that we've had a cold winter as such - it's just that after an extended run of very mild winters leading to very early springs we've had something resembling a winter. Nothing severe, mind you, just daytime temperatures consistently below 6C.

In the late autumn there were hysterical predictions flying around of a severe winter like 1963; if that had happened then we would have been in crisis mode back in January, even without the problems that have developed with the Rough shutdown.

was it 63 or 66?
Definitely 63. England won the world cup in 66.