Memories of Chester’s River Dee freezing over have been flooding in to the Chronicle newsroom via email with photographs, colour slides and cine film.
Reader Roger Vincent’s slides, from 1963, show all sorts of views of the river from the Old Dee Bridge up to Sandy Lane.
Roger, of Hargrave, was about 24 at the time and took photographs of his mother Edith sitting on a stranded boat and his friend Martin Wheeler braving the ice as the sun went down.
“He was braver and more foolish than I was!” he said. “I do remember it being a long, cold winter with the river freezing more than once.”
Roger also remembers the river freezing over again in the 1980s.
“I was down at Sandy Lane with my family and I remember watching a man who had skated from Eccleston hitting a patch of thin ice and going straight in. There was a rush to help him and fortunately he was alright besides a cut nose.”
Derek Hickson sent in a copy of a cine film taken by his father Gerald Hickson whose father Cyril used to work on the River Dee at Bithell’s Boats. Gerald’s footage, which features his wife Margaret and friends Dolly and Arthur Bird, is available to view on The Chronicle website. Margaret grew up in Saughall.
Another reader Jim Espley, of Bretton, recalls: “My elder daughter, who was born in November 1961, accompanied me for a walk across the River Dee at Eccleston. This led me to claim to have walked, swam and rowed across the river.
“At the same time, J Maurice Woodward told me that he ventured his car, a green Morris 8, on the ice.”
Len Morgan, of Queen’s Park, remembers a Triumph Herald and a Mini being driven on to the river at Sandy Lane, while John Stoneley recalls seeing a motor bike on the ice.
Venturing on to the ice himself he remembers almost coming a cropper: “I was work ing with another joiner at the home of Ron Biggins the architect in Sandy Lane.
“Before work one morning we walked down a path at the side of the property to the river, which was frozen over. Having seen nobody on the ice before I edged my way forward. Reaching somewhere about the middle, I began to hear cracking and became very scared, not knowing whether to go back or forward. Thinking I was nearer the Meadows, I went forward and reached the other side. I then had to walk to the suspension bridge and make my way back along the road. A day or two later I saw people walking there with dogs, cycling and I even saw a motorcycle going down.”
Reader Mary Gleave has also submitted cine film of the frozen River Dee in 1963. To view Mary and Derek’s films visit www.chesterchronicle.co.uk
