By Charles Hyatt, Contributor 
THE FIRST Jamaican migrants to England in the 50s will tell you that as far as they were concerned the only difference between autumn and winter - apart from the name of the months they occurred in - was the fog.
Cold was cold!
The type of fog I am talking about was not like what you would encounter in cool times when travelling through Moneague or Bog Walk. That's just mist. 'A foggy day in London Town' meant that sometimes you would not be able to see your hand in front of your face. Apart from that, people with respiratory problems soon found it injurious to breathe in English fog. There was one type of fog that was referred to as 'smog'. That was denser and contained a high concentration of sulphur in it.
In those days, homes were mostly heated by burning coal from the mines of Wales and the north country of England in their furnaces. Every house had a fireplace and a chimney. It was not uncommon to find houses with the baths in them filled up with coal when people stocked up their coal supply for the cold months. In that case a shower or a bath which are two different things, one you stand in and the other you lay in was done on weekends at the public baths for a shilling.
A sea, river or indoor bath was not a daily occurrence as is the custom in Jamaica. Y'see in those cold months the body doesn't sweat, unless very exerted, no matter how warm you may be wrapped up.
Driving in smog was one of the most hazardous ventures, day or night. From autumn till spring the nights are very long. Darkness falls from 3 p.m. and lasts until somewhere around 11: a.m. the next day. Even fog lamps on your vehicle were useless. In the '60s there was a 75 vehicle pile-up on one of the new motorways.
In the mid to late '50s Britain was beginning to be dragged, into modernity. New motorways leading north, west and south out of London were being constructed and laws were being introduced to stop the burning of coal. Under the Clean Air Act coke, became the new fuel of the fireplace. Gas and electric heaters were being installed in apartment buildings and gas operated water heaters were placed in homes.
As bad as the fog was, there was something else even more hazardous for road users black ice! This was a thin layer of frozen frost. It got the name because it was not visible on the road surface. You would be driving, walking or riding and suddenly lose traction and be skidding all over the place, out of control and not be able to do anything about it, until if you are lucky to get off the patch of black ice. By that time, you would either have had an accident or you would have fallen.
This condition usually happened at night in the late hours, when traffic was sparse and the temperature had fallen to freezing point after a rainy day and a frosty night. Y'see, you were not allowed to drive or ride with headlights in built-up areas. Only park lights. The street were so well lit that you didn't need to anyway.
Frost doesn't fall like sleet, which is rain that gets frozen on the way down. It forms on the grass or objects when the temperature in the air falls to or below freezing point. It looked like what we call 'shave ice'. In the morning, before the sun rose, you would see the lawns covered over with it and a thick layer on windows and windscreens. As soon as sunlight appeared it quickly melted away. Until then you would have to use a plastic or metal scraper to remove it from your window.
To someone like me who had never had any experience of autumn or winter in temperate climes before, when I saw my first frosty morning I was a little disappointed. It didn't look or sound, when trodden upon, quite like what I'd seen in the cinema. I was dreaming of a white Christmas in London that year, as I was told by the Weather Bureau was likely, but this was not what I expected.
In those days, London was the most beautiful place to behold. The street decorations were lavish, every county trying to outdo the next. But Oxford, Bond and Regent Streets, Shaftsbury Avenue, Piccadilly, Whitehall and the Mall were usually head and shoulders above anywhere else. Well, between the County Council, the rich merchants and embassies who all pooled their resources together, nowhere else could compete. Jamaica was very much a part of those contributions so we all had good reasons to be proud of the beauty. In the middle of Trafalgar Square a massive Christmas tree, donated annually from Hungary, stood well over 30 feet in height.
Well Christmas Day came and went without any snowfall in London. I was crestfallen. Boxing Day was not a public holiday in England; nor was New Year's Day. That, happy to say, didn't prevent the most raucous New Year's Eve party I'd ever seen. People were jumping in and out of the fountains in Trafalgar Square fully clothed. Men and women! At the stroke of Big Ben the most famous clock in the world, the size of which makes a parish church clock look like a tiny wristwatch - the thousands erupted into the wildest and happiest celebration, all nationalities and races dancing, hugging and kissing, racial intolerance suspended.
On my way home, feeling in high spirits, the way one does during the first moments of a New Year after you have survived the old year and your next milestone is your next birthday, looking overhead I could see a starless sky. The heavens were thick with clouds. There was something peculiar about the overcast sky. It seemed to have a low ceiling, as if one could reach up and touch it. I thought "Oh ooh, it's going to be a rainy one today."
I didn't seem to have fallen asleep for more than a few minutes when I was awakened by an anxious knocking on my door. Looking at the clock, it was past 10 in the morning and dawn was breaking. When I opened the door my landlady was standing in the doorway with a broad smile and two outstretched handfuls of pure white snow. While I slept, London was enjoying an 18" snowfall. In my excitement I rushed out into the backyard, still in my pyjamas, and flung myself onto a soft blanket of fresh snow.
That was my first snow. It happened on the first of January.
