This report about the big-freeze of 1929 appeared in The Westmorland Gazette on February 8, 1985.

CHARLES Raffles of Staveley remembered how he and his wife rescued a man who had fallen through the ice on Windermere.

Kenneth Tomlinson of Grange remembered the Headmaster of Windermere Grammar School cancelling the last two periods each day so that the boys could skate on the frozen lake.

The freeze was only expected to last for a day or two but it continued into March and the boys skated every day. He remembered The Gazette driving an Austin 7 on to the ice with a rope attached to the rear bumper to tow skaters.

Mrs Nancy Thomas of Arnside remembered being given the afternoon off to go skating and that the railway ran special trips for tourists to Windermere from Manchester and Liverpool.

Mr M. Mahoney, who used to work at George and Jobling’s garage in Bowness, recalled that the fifteen-inch cover of ice was so popular that toilets had to be opened to accommodate all the visitors. He was one of the many skaters who enjoyed dancing on the ice to Lupton’s band.

Mrs Joyce Woodhouse, Mr Edward Powley and Mrs A. Dixon, all of Kendal, recalled the un-nerving whip-like racks as the ice began to melt.

There was so great a weight of people on the ice, loudspeakers instructed everyone to get off it as there was an underthaw caused by currents in the lake.