Last week’s brief flurry of snow reminds me of the real snowfalls we had when I first came to the Forest to live in St Briavels. In my ancestral home in north east England, snow always started to fall on Boxing Day, and from then onwards, periodically, until about late March roads and schools and there would be roads closed and school closed from time to time. Snow ploughs would be out clearing the roads. There would be snowball fights, and extravagantly dressed snowmen would be artistically created, surviving until the end of winter when they would have melted shrunk to a tiny mound with their fine costume in an undignified heap around them, lasting for weeks after the rest of the snow had melted or been shovelled away. The football programme would be postponed so that teams had to play two or three matches a week into May or even June to complete their season’s fixtures.

In my ancestral home in north east England, snow always started to fall on Boxing Day, and from then onwards, periodically, until about late March there would be roads and school closed from time to time. Snow ploughs would be out clearing the roads. There would be snowball fights, and extravagantly dressed snowmen would be artistically created, surviving until the end of winter when they would have melted shrunk to a tiny mound with their fine costume in an undignified heap around them, lasting for weeks after the rest of the snow had melted or been shovelled away. The football programme would be postponed so that teams had to play two or three matches a week into May or even June to complete their season’s fixtures.

But now, it’s ‘où sont les neiges d'antan?’ as the mediaeval French writer Francois Villon put it so eloquently many years ago. For it to be translated into English, the word ‘yesteryear’ had to be invented to convert the mournful ‘antan’ to English. Where are the snows of yesteryear? Buried away as a catchphrase, reflecting sentimental thoughts of time past, reflecting nostalgic and romanticised views, associating snowfalls of long ago with lost youth.

There was real snow in the early 1970s, in the highlands of St Briavels. Snow would cut off the village from the outside world. During a particularly heavy snowstorm the snow could block all exits from St Briavels to the world beyond. Views from the Castle to the white Wye valley far below were spectacular, but many motorists had to turn back on their journey to Chepstow and beyond, defeated by the snow after they tried unsuccessfully to persuade their vehicles to force their way through hedge top high snow drifts.

There was no alternative but to retreat to the village, where the Crown pub (now sadly a pub no more) would be open by the generous landlords George and Lorraine Pritchard, with bacon sandwiches and a roaring wood fire for the frustrated commuters. Cars often had to be abandoned there, to be retrieved when the roads were navigable again

After St Briavels, we spent 10 years in the tropics, so no snow there, but we would think nostalgically of winter snows back in England, with family walks through snowy forest footpaths with our dog. But on our return, there was never anything more substantial than a brief dusting of snow . There were winters without snows, or winters with nothing more than a few random flakes, No snowball fights, or mid morning bacon sandwiches and coffee with George and Lorraine, and definitely no snow before Christmas.

But now, with this unseasonably flurry of snow in mid-November, I’m dreaming of a White Christmas.