The year starts with a chill, 1979 one of the coldest winters 

A JCB digger clears snow from a road in the Brendon Hills in Somerset. The blizzard hit on New Year's Eve. The winter of 1978-79 is known as one of the snowiest on record. Many airports closed, roads were blocked and businesses brought to a standstill. For political reasons this winter is dubbed as the Winter of Discontent from a line in Shakespeare's Richard III owing to widespread strikes by public sector trade unions. 

In living memory, the winter of 1962-63 was known as the big freeze, with some of the coldest years in Britain being 1684, 1739-40, 1836, 1927-8, 1933, 1940, 1947, 1952-53.