Oldham Turns White

It's true!  The place that was once described as the home of dark, satanic mills with soot and grime blackening the stone buildings has turned white.

This able bodied Oldham lad is on his way to work - he forgot the dogs, but with Oldham being a town full of hills getting down some of them isn't a problem - getting back up again is.  Then again, the pubs are open so by the time he gets to the top of the hill he'll not care too much.  You may notice the right boot sticking out, this is the right hand turn signal to enter the pub's car park - or sledge park if you will.



Dobcross, like all the villages in the Saddleworth area faced blizzard conditions, with the Huddersfield Canal frozen and covered in snow. The Oldham Evening Chronicle reported:

SNOW could ease by the end of this week but Oldham will continue to battle sub-zero temperatures as the big freeze takes hold. 

 The Chron went on to report:

As the mercury tumbled to -2.8C overnight, snow showers blanketed the borough, turning village squares into picture postcard scenes. 

 Of course Dobcross, opposite, is well lit up with most people wrapped up warm in their homes or wrapped up warm in the local boozer.


 We are supposed to be use to it in Oldham, and I suppose to some extent we are.  The town is hardly at sea level, being at the foot of the Pennines with many villages like Dobcross, Denshaw, Diggle, Uppermill and Greenfield actually being  in the Pennines, so there's a tendency for the town to attract cold weather, so much so that Penguins have been reported in some of the towns reservoirs frozen solid for the winter.  When you see Polar Bears crossing the street in Diggle, you know it's either too cold or you've had too much in the Hare and Hounds!

So to my American friends in Wisconsin who have often queried whether or not we get snow in my home town, I would suggest that the answer would be in the affirmative.  Oldham folk may be critical of the local authority, but that comes with the turf - who actually likes politicians and the officials who serve them?  Nevertheless, the boys and girls at the sharp end of keeping Oldham's roads free of snow and ice do a good job in difficult conditions.

If my brother Kev, who is well over 6' in height, can see over the snow then the buses will keep running because the gritters will still get through.  Mind you, I wish they'd stop using him as a measuring rod!

Just back from the doc.  It seems I've a touch of cancer, and I don't mean the constellation.  My response to hearing the news was a single word: "Bugger!"

It isn't as bad as it sounds, they may wish to do a biopsy to find out how to treat it, but it can be treated.  The one thing I find annoying about all this is that I went to the docs with a cough!  Now if I had have stuck with Halls Vapor Action Spearmint I may never have discovered this.  Oh yes!  The doc gave me antibiotics and they cleared the cough!  Now you may understand the exclamation, "Bugger!"