Published: Thursday, 8th January, 2009 12:00pm

It sends a chill

by Newsdesk

Comments (0) | Print | Email

AS THE cold winds roared in from the Arctic and Siberia many of us wished we could snuggle back under the duvet rather than return to work this week.

The town has been hit hard by the big freeze, which has been tightening its icy fingers across Britain, resulting in chaos on the roads and on the railways, where temperatures on chilly platforms were only offset by tempers boiling over at rail fares rising sky-high.

But as thousands of office and factory employees whinged about getting back to the grindstone after their Christmas and New Year's indulgences, others were cracking on with tasks they had been carrying out 24 hours a day throughout the holiday, forfeiting their festivities to keep the country running.

On Tuesday, for example, fire crews spent nearly two hours frantically searching Maiden Erlegh Lake in Earley in sub-zero tempertatures amid fears that a child might have crashed through the ice into the murky waters below.

Thankfully their search was in vain, but it was just another day's work for those firefighters.

They had been equally prominent with pumps and sandbags on Sunday morning when water from a burst pipe flooded homes and businesses in Wilderness Road, Earley, ruining, among other things, a family Christening party.

Meanwhile, railway workers were keeping a constant vigil to ensure tracks, signals and level crossings were ice-free to provide a smooth path to work, and lollipop ladies wrapped up in scarves and thermals to help chattering children on their way back to school.

There are hundreds of people who come rain or shine pull out the stops and get on with the job.

But we must also remember the hundreds of people, many in this area, who will start 2009 in a mood of extreme pessimism, because they have no job at all. There but for the grace of God...