I know I've mentioned this before, so my apologies in advance if people are fed up with hearing it, but my dad and I used to deliver the milk to all of the roads at the top of Forest Hill (until 1969) and we never missed a daily delivery because of the snow. Even in the appalling winter of '63 we still got around.

One of the main reasons we succeeded in getting up (and down) the hills in the snow (Canonbie could be something else -) was because we always had snow chains fitted to the wheels of the milk float. These helped to cut through the snow and ice.

However, I should add out that our humble float had some built in advantages when it came to tackling the snow and ice. Not least the fact that there was tremendous weight (the crates of milk) sitting directly over the driving wheels which provided excellent grip and being electric, you could gently feed the power in from a standstill to limit wheelspin. In fact, grip was so good that we used to gently nudge the nose of the float against the rear bumpers of customers cars when they were stuck in the snow (they had metal bumpers then) and push them up to the top of Westwood Park and Ringmore Rise.

Fitting a set of snow chains to your car might well help (try Halfords) for the local shopping etc although once back on clear roads you have to keep your speed down - Again, the float was never fast, so having chains fitted on clear roads was never a problem - even though we used to drive back and forth to Forest Hill everyday from the United Dairies depot at Brockley Cross. Indeed, often the biggest problem for us in bad weather was actually getting to the depot at the crack of dawn.