White stuff induces the usual panic

In the days before such media coverage, in an age before we were part of the European Union, we could retreat behind our 'island nation' mentality and muddle through the kind of situation seen this week in relative anonymity.

Not any more. Our paralysis is revealed for all to see - and still it doesn't shame us our of our entrenched attitude.

This makes it all the more surprising that we have never learned to cope with Winter.

Not only are we unprepared in the material and and practical sense, psychologically we are simply not up to the job. Why?

Because we don't like to confront reality and because the problem presents itself relatively infrequently.

Why else would a scant two inches of the white stuff bring Bexhill to a halt as it did on Monday?

The streets were deserted. Shops and schools shut. Buses and trains stopped running. It was as if the community had retreated into some form of corporate hibernation, hoping that Winter would have passed by the time it awoke.

In comparison with much of the South East, Bexhill was fortunate. As it so often is at these times. Snowfall here was strictly minimal.

The only complicating factor was that a slight overnight thaw after Sunday's snow was followed by a further cold snap.

This reminded 'old hands' of a truly farcical morning towards the end of the Great Freeze of 1962-1963 when every street, every pavement was glazed with black ice.

Not only did no vehicles move, it was impossible for walkers to keep to their feet.

With this Monday morning exception - a situation which swiftly resolved itself when daylight came and the thermometer edged upward a little - there was nothing which should have produced the tragi-comic response which developed.

We had no high wind to produce blizzard conditions. There were no large build-ups of snow. Bexhill is not hilly, like Hastings or Brighton or exposed like other south coast areas. Major roads had been gritted.

The simple truth is that Britons have short memories. We are preoccupied with the weather as an eternal subject of conversation but do little in terms of practical preparation.

The fact that is easy to recall the more severe winters - '62-63, or the lesser example eight years ago - demonstrates that there is little in between to ruffle our complacency.

One thing is a certainty. Given another winter when the white stuff begins to fall we shall all go into panic mode yet again.