In reply to wushu:
I
just remember it. We (well mum and dad) had to dig our way out of the house each morning as the wind drifted the snow continually. Bitterly cold, the house didn't have central heating (very few did back then) and basically it was a case of keeping the kitchen fire running all the time and only venturing to other rooms if you had to. I hadn't started school so there was no need to go anywhere unless it was a medical emergency.
All the pipes were frozen, we had a private supply and the main feed was only about a foot down so that was frozen and would freeze pretty well any winter if there was more than a few days' continuous frost until we replaced it in the 1980s. There was the original water supply to the house which was a spring/well that never froze up so it was a case of carrying water in buckets the 100 metres or so back to the house. That's carrying water for everything: drinking, cooking, washing, toilet. I doubt mum did much if any laundry other than what was absolutely necessary.
People didn't travel as much back then, most worked fairly close to home. I don't know what we did for groceries, there used to be a grocery van do the rounds twice a week but whether it ran that winter I can't remember.
ALC