What the snow told us about modern Britain

But this winter has also made us think anew about our capacity to take risk, our self-reliance. It has made us wonder if David Cameron is right: that society is run by health-and-safety fusspots. A potent image has emerged of the poor snowed-in householder ignored by the grit lorry, yet told not to clear his own pavement because he’d be sued if someone slipped. Are we really thwarted in our helpful impulses by finger-wagging bureaucracy?

I called the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL), who would have plenty to gain from such cases. Its spokesman insists that this is a snow myth as big as the yeti. If we clear the snow we must merely show “reasonable responsibility”.

So, if like me, you were so weary of mincing down your sheet-ice-covered street that you set to with a shovel and dishwasher salt, you’d be deemed to have done your duty. However, if you are what lawyers term “a complete numpty” and pour a kettle of boiling water on the path and it refreezes, you could be liable if some elderly lady smashed her hip.

Except that 99 per cent of judges are unlikely to believe that you did this recklessly and, in any case, if you have household contents insurance, you are fully covered for third party liability should you lose.

So we don’t have to sit impotently at home, mourning our lack of national — and municipal — grit. Though it might be helpful, come the next snowmageddon, if we receive proper leadership.

As a country, we don’t have much feeling for snow. Couldn’t some government minister organise a photo op, be filmed in bobble hat and Christmas jumper, clearing his own few square metres, while announcing that — to aid our overstretched council workforce — we should all do our bit. He could demonstrate the correct method without making the path treacherous. In the suburbs, folk are scraping their roads anyway, whatever the scare stories, and knocking on elderly neighbours’ doors offering to clear theirs too.

But would this imply a Labour Government fessing up to a failure of central infrastructure planning? I wonder if David Cameron will appear next winter digging post-victory in his drive for social responsibility. In any case, it would be useful if the Prime Minister informed British children that snow does not entitle them to a national holiday. State school heads this week congratulated themselves on opening up for GCSEs: but if they could manage it for exams, why not every day?

I have started to fear that my sons’ backbones have turned to slush. On Wednesday, as London awoke to an unforecast 3in, they started making exciting plans. Er, but you are going to school. You live 15 minutes’ walk away. Cue sulks until an Ugg-footed kick sent them out the door. It is partly the fault of some parents unwilling to dispatch children on a chilly trudge. Or the mothers who look at you with pity when you cry “But they’ve only been back a week!” and express their joy at the wonder of winter as they head to the park with a tin tray.

But mostly it is because schools now close in the most unfathomable circumstances. Note: I refer not to primaries locked in Peak District permafrost, but those in cities, where roads are passable, buses run and parents struggle in. Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, in a mighty act of decentralisation, left the decision to individual head teachers.

And so, while my sons’ old primary was shut, another, 500m away, was open. Around 40 schools in Southwark closed, only 11 in neighbouring Lambeth.

Parents are supposed to squander annual leave without complaint.“It is not schools’ duty to provide childcare,” snip teachers if you dare. Yet private schools seldom shut because they know the economic effect on their parent-paymasters.

State school teachers need to be reminded sometimes that we pay for them too. We all connect. A school closure is the first domino that tumbles, leading a teacher-mother in another borough to leave her class, a midwife to tell her ward that she’ll miss her shift. There would be fewer snow days, I’d bet, if they were automatically added back on to the end of term.

That teachers are stranded by transport is forgivable. But some schools close because playgrounds are deemed too slippery and if children are injured parents may sue. Indeed many schools — including my nephew’s in Manchester — keep kids locked up through every playtime and lunch break rather than risk a bump.

I once beseeched teachers to let my kids out, to burn off some energy, to enjoy the fun of snow, which is their right. “You wouldn’t say that if your son fell,” I was told. I would, I replied; keeping them inside is far more cruel.

I ask the APIL spokesman if this too is an urban legal myth. A school has only to take “reasonable care” of pupils, he says, a definition that should be covered if they are warned about ice and properly supervised. A parent might find a no-win no-fee lawyer if an award was likely to be over £1,000: for a snapped wrist, a facial scar. But it is unlikely that a judge would find against the school.

A head teacher must make a risk assessment, then aim to reduce it, not, says Mr APIL, eliminate it completely. No judge would think that locking up 600 children all day was a worthwhile price to avoid one potential injury. More likely, he says, teachers don’t want to stand outside in the cold, or contemplate the hassle of a trip to A&E.

So this health-and-safety monster does exist: in the minds of jobsworths, lazybones and buck-passers, not in the law. That’s the main thing that we have learnt from the snow.