This film is part of Free
The Great Blizzard
In the year that British Summer Time is introduced, the weather gods have their say, with a snowy gale ripping across southern England
Overview
Where's the snow? By the time the newsreel cameras appeared the ice had melted, but the damage caused by the violent snowy gale of the 27th and 28th March had left its mark. Countless trees and telephone poles were felled across the south of England at the end of cold, snowy winter that must have added to the misery of a country at war.
Two months later British Summer Time was first introduced, thanks in no small part to almost a decade of campaigning by keen early bird William Willett, who died a year before his dream was realised. The Summer Time Act of 1916 gave an extra hour of daylight to help put memories of a miserable winter to rest, and to save fuel and money in difficult times.
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