Apparently the next bad one was 1963, which I remember well, but I have to say these past two have been the coldest since.......anyway I digress, do you know the exact location, or better still have any photos of the POW camp at Dove Holes.  A hut was removed and given to the scouts.

Cheers

Edited by user 19 December 2010 23:09:28(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Good morning winter suffers

I vaguely remember my mother taking me on a bus to Chapel in 1947 and immediately past the Hanging Gate the there had been a very deep snow drift with a channel dug out and the snow was piled high coming level with the top of the bus. Also I later was told this had been dug out by German prisoners of war.

Could this explain David's photo from the Telegraph as it was on the road from Whaley Bridge to Buxton near Chapel?

george 

Just on the Dove Holes Scouts, I believe there was a scout group up to around the 1970's, in the early 80's it was started up again by Jim Longson. Seem to remeber Jim mentioning there had been a scout group but fizzled out due to membership/interest

The 80's scout group met in the school near the cricket club. Seem to remember that the cricket club had a wooden hut and it was rebuilt again sometime in the 80's.The hut was old, so may of been around from the war years?

Someone asked why there were still prisoners of war in England in 1947.

A lot of these were Russian/Germans who, when Germany invaded Russia, joined the winning side either forcably or by volunteering. At the end of the war they realised that they had joined the wrong side and didn't want to be repatriated. Stalin,Roosevelt and Churchill met at Yalta in the Crimea just before the end of the war when it was obvious who was going to win. This was followed by a meeting in Potsdam (Roosevelt had died and Truman now represented the US) and decided that the best thing for everyone would be to send them home. Thousands of them committed suicide rather than go home and the thousands that did go back were subsequently shot.Churchill regretted this decision until his death.

Here endeth the History lesson.

Edited by user 23 December 2010 22:27:57(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

The temperatures now might be record lows but the snow was certainly deeper then!

I have read somewhere that one of the huts was acquired by a scout group and taken to another part of the county.

A bit of googling shows that the prisoners were Italian and that one hut was sold to the Chapel Boys Brigade and was relocated near Town End, Chapel and used by Sam Longson until a few years ago when it was demolished.  I wonder if Buxton's purveyor of ice cream knows anything.

I am currently reading the Gulag Archipelago which is a bit of an eye opener on how we returned prisoners to Stalin who didn't want Russians to hear tales from those who had been contaminated by their experience's of the West.  The book will soon be in Footsteps for those who wish to read this sorry tale.

Cheers

Edited by user 24 December 2010 09:56:08(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Certainly some seemed to be a bit tougher in 1947. I recall my Grandfather telling me how he walked from Buxton to (I think) one of the Sterndales (it may have even been Hollinsclough or Flagg) in the snows of 47 to keep a preaching appointment at the Methodist chapel. Only he and the church steward managed to make it that day.

Edited by user 26 December 2010 21:41:22(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified