January 2026
- Phil Hadley
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
As I write this in early January a Met Office weather warning for snow and ice is in place. The local news outlet Cornwall Live has posted an article claiming snow has fallen this afternoon across large parts of the county including the town where I live. Having been out and about both this afternoon and this evening I can assure you my town saw no snow! They also posted this submitted image claiming it to be taken in the moorland village of Minions. The photo next to their snow picture shows the only road through Minions and you can easily verify the snow photo was not taken there. So two things send the inept, lazy, un-fact-checked, click-bait driven local media wild. Snow and fake news!
Both were an issue in Cornwall during World War Two. Wartime sources record that we had snow that made a serious impact across large swathes of the county on several occasions. Because there were no weather forecasts on radio or in the newspapers during the war, as the information would be of use to the enemy, historians have to look at a wide range of records to build up a picture of the weather in more than just one location. While on the first winter of 1939-1940 Britain had one of its coldest periods for a long time with 8 miles of the River Thames freezing between Teddington and Sunbury Cornwall’s mild climate meant the county escaped the worst of the cold weather receiving just a frost.
The 8th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment held a night exercise on 20/21 December 1940 on Bodmin Moor to practise night marching and the occupation of a position at night. Their War Diary records it was carried out in bitterly cold weather.
The beginning of 1941 saw several snowstorms in Cornwall that reduced the roads to a virtual standstill and played havoc with flying. On Thursday 16th January the Police reported that snow was falling over practically the whole of the county. Roads were described as passable with care except on hills and exposed places where chains were necessary. The weather was to have an impact on flying.
William Lionel Beech of 234 Squadron took off from RAF St Eval in Spitfire N3191 at 1030 hours for a patrol over Dodman Point. He was returning at 1048 hours when in a dive the plane lost its wings and the aircraft crashed in a field adjoining the Rectory at Ruan Lanihorne. The machine was a total wreck and Beech was killed. A military guard was kept on the plane until the wreckage was taken to AST Ltd at Hamble on 14th February for inspection to determine the cause of the accident. Beech was buried in St Eval Churchyard. He was aged 21 and from Vancouver in Canada.
It was the second loss that morning for 234 Squadron as Sergeant George Wade Rodgers was lost whilst engaging a Junkers 88 20 miles off South East Cornwall. No trace of plane or pilot was found. Visibility was poor due to the snow storm and clouds. Rodgers was from Falmouth.
There was another snowstorm at the beginning of February that brought the county to a halt for three days. This happened when the mainline railway was blocked at Par when the coupling on one of the trucks on a goods train broke as the train headed up the bank to St Austell and 19 trucks rolled backwards down the hill and came off the rails near Par Signal Box slightly injuring the guard. Both main lines were blocked and after a huge effort in atrocious weather conditions both lines were reopened on 3rd February.
On the 4th the Cornwall Constabulary War Diary stated, “Roads west of St Austell are passable without chains except for certain small patches. East of St Austell roads are treacherous but passable with chains and great care in some places.” By the 5th “roads west of St Austell were now normal. Some roads east of St Austell on high ground are passable with chains.” It wasn’t until the 6th that the police reported all roads in the county were now normal.
The winter of 1944-45 was also a severe one. Most World War Two historians are familiar with photos and film footage of the Battle of the Bulge being fought in deep snow. In Britain there were several snow falls over several weeks as the fresh snow piled on the frozen previous downfalls. Cornwall saw heavy snow on January 23rd. The snowstorm caused 8 naval barrage balloons to escape their tethers from Falmouth’s defences and were found over the next 24 hours from Carnhell Green to the majority coming to ground over the Roseland peninsula.
Traffic got stuck on the A30 at Temple as George Ellis’ photographs show. This included RAF trucks transporting spare wings and propellers for aircraft, despite the council’s best efforts at gritting. However the AA’s trusty patrol man made it through to the Temple AA Telephone Box on his motorbike. George Ellis, who lived in Bodmin, was able to abandon his car in the middle of the A30 at the Cardinham/Blisland crossroads to include it in his photo of the road sign (which incidentally had been reinstated in March 1944 to help the Americans find their way around now the threat of German invasion had passed).
Fake news was also an issue in wartime. Sometimes it was just local gossip and rumour from ill-informed and ill-judged people; other times it was tales that grew like Chinese whispers with each telling. Sometimes the government would use falsehood to boost morale or protect the national interest.
On Saturday 7th September 1940 when the alert ‘Codeword Cromwell’ had gone out to all Britain’s armed forces and Home Guard units, the Probus Home Guard heard a report that there had been a landing at Port Holland and squeezed into two cars to drive to the coast to head off the invasion. On arrival they found it was a false alarm and meekly headed back to the village they should have stayed and defended!
In the dark days of 1940/1941 when Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany, the RAF provided hope and heroes to a population starved of both. The heroes of the Battle of Britain are legendary, even if we didn’t shoot down 175 Nazi planes in a single day as the BBC and newspaper headlines claimed. In 1941 it was the nighttime bombing of cities around the UK that was causing great concern. But, thanks to a new airborne radar system developed by the British the RAF began to have some success in fighting back. Indeed, Group Captain John Cunningham became the leading night fighter pilot chalking up 20 confirmed kills in an often hair-raising series of sorties. To cover up the new scientific development that was aiding his exceptional success John was nicknamed “Cat’s Eyes Cunningham” – a name he hated – and his skill was put down to eating carrots to improve his night vision. The claim was carrots, rich in Vitamin A, helped him to see in the dark. This unassuming man died aged 84 in 2002.
However, my grandmother who lived in the east end of London right through the war firmly believed the cover story and even in the 1990s before she died in 1999 would argue with me that carrots and not radar was the reason for the success of night fighter pilots like Group Captain Cunningham and Flight Lieutenant Stevens (who had 14 kills before his own death in December 1941). While carrots can help solve a Vitamin A deficiency which can harm your eyesight, it provides no boost to most of the population to help them see in the dark. It is just wartime propaganda that helped boost the consumption of a UK grown vegetable saving on shipping and imports.
So Cornwall Live be aware that some of your readers are intelligent and discerning and can make informed judgements about the fake news you pedal to get the views on your website and social media streams. We don’t all believe the propaganda we are bombarded with on a daily basis, especially when it will be pretty obvious when the white stuff falls “all over Cornwall”.
Until next month, stay warm, stay safe.
Shalom.