That terrible  winter of ‘63

Reunited: more than 40 years on John Shakespeare returns to Green Withens reservoir, Rishworth, to meet Christine Fairbank, whom he rescued as a nine-year-old girl, with her mother, in the bitter winter of 1962-3

RECENTLY in Flashback Christine Fairbank told her horrifying story of the bitter winter of 1962-3 when, as a nine-year-old, she and her mother nearly died in a blizzard on the wild moors above Rishworth.
Christine’s father, Albert, was the keeper at Green Withens reservoir, a mile off the Ripponden to Oldham road near Windy Hill, and close to where exit 22 of the M62 now is.
Christine, who now lives in the keeper’s house at another reservoir, Withens Clough, Cragg Vale, takes up the story: “One morning in the winter of 1962/63 I had been out with my mum into Rishworth. We caught the Oldham bus back as far as Windy Hill; it was a cold, bright sunny day.
“We set off for the mile walk home, which was 1,200 feet above sea level. The weather soon deterior-ated and we found ourselves battling a severe blizzard in exposed, open moorland, dangerously close to a wide, deep water conduit.
“The gale-force winds blew straight into our faces, whipping up ice and peppering us hard. It was very painful and each gasp of breath became more painful.
“I cried with the pain and tried to shelter behind my mum and under her coat, but we had no mercy from the dreadful conditions.
“It took us two hours to reach home but then we could not move our hands or fingers to grip the key to open the locked door. There was nothing more we could do to help ourselves.”
But the pair had been spotted getting off the bus by a surveyor who was work- ing on the moors collecting weather and other data in connection with the motorway that was about to be built across the Pennines.
“When he completed his work he returned to see if we were all right. He found us huddled together on the doorstep like frozen statues. I definitely owe my life to the M62 motorway!”
That man was John Shakespeare, then a 24-year-old living with his wife and son in a modest terraced house in Mill Bank. Now, 43 years on, aged 67 and still living in the area – at Heathfield Rise, Rishworth – he read Christine’s story and decided to get in touch.
Back in 1963 Mr Shakes-peare was based in a cabin at Scammonden from where he would collect readings from a number of weather stations and also collect data about, for example, snow drifting, which would help the motorway engineers in the design of the new road which was to be carved acoss the bleak Pennines.
He had been told not to go out in blizzard conditions and, indeed, he recalls the death of another reservoir keeper, at Gorple, in that infamous winter; despite extensive searches his body had not been found for weeks.
Mr Shakespeare recalls seeing Christine Fairbank and her mother get off the bus and that bad weather was closing in. He went on with his work but then decided to check to see that they had reached home.
He set off up that long track in his four-wheel-drive Austin Gipsy, found the pair and saw them safely inside.
Modestly he doesn’t think in terms of saving their lives, though he plainly did.
It seems amazing that Christine and her mother could struggle for two hours through a blizzard and yet not manage to open the door to warmth and safety but Christine thinks they were suffering from frostbite and their attempts to turn the key were just too painful to bear.
John Shakespeare’s work on the M62 project was only for three months. But a year later he was back, this time testing materials in connection with the actual buiding of the new motorway.
And that led to a lifetime in local government, first with the West Riding highways department, then with Huddersfield-based Kirklees Council until his early retirement at the age of 54 in 1993.
So like Christine Fairbank, but in a very different way, John Shakespeare can say: “I owe my life to the M62.”

The office: surveyor John Shakes-peare’s mobile cabin during the 1962-3 winter at Scammonden from which he would venture to collect weather and other data used to help engineers to build the M62