Notes from the Past by Robert Piper, December 2022
Now winter is here I’ve been looking to see what happened in the village in Christmases past. In December 1862 the village sent aid to a coal mine disaster in Lancashire where 204 men and boys were killed. In 1872 it was reported that over 8000 acres of land in Sussex had not been sown with wheat because of the wet weather. In 1892 the vicar reported that the Need Work Group had sent 25 garments to Mrs Lucas at Warnham Court for onward distribution. In 1903 the village working men’s club and reading room reopened and the vicar thanked Mrs Girling for the flower decorations in the church and Mrs Ansell for the lovely white chrysanthemums at the church altar.
On 24th December 1913 the village was invited by the church congregation to join them The choir, led by the crucifix. processed from the church to the railway bridge at 7pm accompanied by torch bearers to mark Christmas as a holy day.
In December 1942 Mr Albert Garrick of Birchwood farm was fined £1 plus £1 cost ( RPI £36) for traveling by train from Rudgwick to Guildford without a ticket. That month the children of the village put on a show in aid of the Red Cross and raised £4-15-0 (RPI £106-62). In January 1943 Mrs Potter gave a talk to the WI on how to make a pair of slippers from an old felt hat and a piece of carpet. In 1952, 78 people attended the Christmas day service along with 20 children. The church sent £1-7-6 (RPI £30-86) to a Korean church. At the end of the year the church repair fund stood at £722 (RPI £16205-62)
In the afternoon of Boxing Day 1962 the sky turned steel grey over Southwater and it started to snow. By the next day Gatwick airport reported 10 inches of snow on the runway. By the end of the year there was 19 inches of snow in Southwater. Getting round the village was very difficult and there was 16 inches of ice on the clay pit. All football games were abandoned. It was so cold the sea froze along with the rivers. The first blue sky was not seen over the village until February and the snow did not clear until March 1963. It was the coldest winter since 1740.