So far this winter, apart from that very cold snap, our weather has been fairly mild and wet.

While other areas of the country have had snow in varying amounts, little has been seen in and around the Herald area – but there’s still a lot of the winter to go yet.

This archive photograph is dated New Year’s Day in 1951 (remember then it wasn’t a bank holiday). The scene is Downing Street and the council snow plough is hard at work trying to clear the roadway while hardy well-dressed pedestrians pass by on the pavement.

The winter of 1950-51 was marked for its exceptional mildness and rain in February and there is no mention of heavy snow in December or January so one can only assume that what we are seeing here was quite normal in the 1950s.

However, other photographs in this set showed that, while not a vast amount, the snow presented problems of where to put it once the town’s roads and pavements had been cleared. It appears the wide verges alongside the town’s new bypass were used as dumping grounds.

Anyone interested in volunteering for the Herald Digital Archive Project is encouraged to email the team at [email protected]