About this time last year I met by chance in a pub an acquaintance who had just arrived in town from W Yorks (around 70 miles). He was looking shaken, having been driven here through snow by his Canadian wife.

Her reaction to driving in about 3 inches of new-fallen snow over the Yorkshire moors was "Whee, lets have some fun!!!...What's up with all these people,... don't they know how to drive in snow?" And of course she had nailed it exactly, no they didn't.

Most people here don't know; I don't myself, to be honest, because we seldom get the practice. In most parts it would be impractical to fit snow tyres for the few days they might be justified, and even chains are seen as "Specialised equipment, Mate, we don't get the call for it."

A few years ago I was heading back to Murren (Switzerland) from a day skiing, but found the railway closed, engulfed by an avalanche. A porter told me how to get home via a bus & cable-car, no problem. Here a railway blocked this way would be at least local, maybe national, news, and would be re-opened within 6 months. There it was routine, and re-opened before breakfast next day.

We just don't equip ourselves, not physically, not organisationally (is that a real word) and above all not mentally. Come global warming, when the Gulf Stream switches off and the UK suddenly gets a climate to match its latitude we are going to have such a re-education.