Or perhaps not quite 'ever thus!' From 'Horizon' - The Magazine of BOAC Flight Operations January/February 1968:
SICK SICK SNOW
In the icy winter of 1963 it used to be said from time to time that all snow-clearance on London Airport had to stop because someone had busted the shovel, but since those primitive days scores of thousands of quid have been spent on snow-clearing equipment and things have changed completely. Er - hang on a minute, we'll try that over again:- since those primitive days scores of thousands of quid have been spent on snow-clearing equipment, and it hasn't made the smallest perceptible difference.
On the night of 8th-9th January a few hours' snow fell. It had been plainly forecast, and cars coming this way from the west bore clear evidence of its impending arrival. Nevertheless, on Tuesday morning London Airport was O-U-T out. However, came the dawn, and the British Airports Authority got cracking when they saw the white blanket, and got runway 10L/28R clear. This was a pity because it's the shorter of the two main runways, so with takeoffs limited by noise abatement procedures four aircraft had to make additional technical calls for fuel. This wasn't cheap.
Taxiway clearance was very slow and by 11:00 hrs. on the 9th January BOAC had only one clear parking spot in the Central Area. But
we'd heeded the the snow warning, and with commendable foresight had put five aeroplanes to bed in the hangars, so we were able to bring the passengers over and launch the services from there the next morning.
We had six diversions to Prestwick and two to Manchester, and one VC10 was held on the ground at Rome until the crew ran out of time. Very expensive!
The taxiways didn't get clear for towing until a warm breeze came in during the small hours of Sunday, 14th January and melted all the snow, and during all that time we had to have crews standing by twenty-four hours a day for taxying the aircraft from the hangars to the apron.
At 11:00 on Wednesday, 10th January 10R/28L was at last declared serviceable for takeoffs only, and it was cleared for landings in the afternoon of 12th (about 80 hours after the snow fell), but with a warning of 7mm ice ridges and only medium braking.
The BAA bloke was interviewed on TV on Wednesday night and asked why on earth they didn't get stuck into the snow clearance right away? He explained blandly that they'd had a forecast of warm rain coming through so they decided to let the rain do the job for them.
And what was the magnitude of the mighty blizzard that wrought all this havoc? Ah, we thought you'd ask that so we checked, and the answer is that there fell on London Airport on the 8th/9th January exactly 9 cms of snow; which being freely translated comes out at three and three quarter inches!
Melancholy footnote: on Friday night another couple of inches fell, and the airport went out again - twice - on the Saturday.
Editor.
As you can see, the said 'Editor' - the late
SEO Oscar Ingham of the VC10 fleet had a pithy way with words!
I can also add that, working in BOAC flight ops over those days, I stood in the VC10 roster office and watched from above as the bemused but delighted passengers were brought into the cavernous surroundings of the TBA South Pen to board the aircraft. They were then towed outside for engine start. Of course it would be impossible to do this nowadays.