Bring back the traditional British winter, that’s all I can say.

Those lovely crisp, cold days, where, across the country scenes reminiscent of a Bruegel painting were played out as children jumped into waist-high snow drifts, sledged down hillsides, tentatively walked across frozen ponds and got detention at school for throwing snowballs.

Not only detention. I got a ruler across the palm for throwing a snowball at the windows of the gym while a lunchtime lesson was in progress. “Helen Mead!” I remember the teacher bawling across the playground, before screaming the names of my two accomplices.

It isn’t just nostalgia, we really don’t get winters like we used to. Now winter is in many ways like summer, with nine out of ten days seeing rain. It is a bit like living inside a car wash. Whether it is a natural cycle or man-made, it isn’t great, particularly for those of us whose homes have been swamped by flood water.

It’s weird weather and no one seems to know exactly what is to blame - greenhouse gasses, the warm ocean current El Nino, the Gulf Stream, all have been thrown into the pot. Whatever theories people spout, no-one really knows for certain.

Whatever the cause, it’s sad to think that winter as I knew it as a child is no more. With snowfalls bound to last a few days, we would get up early and drag our sledges to The Warren on the hills behind our village. A natural gulley running down the side became the perfect tobogganing run for sledges and - fastest of all- plastic bags.

Children who lived on farms would bring a supply of agricultural strength bags, some stuffed with hay, upon which we would sit and lie, before rocketing down at a tremendous speed.

York Press:

More snow please, we're British

At home our windows would sport amazing icicles, as long at the windows themselves. They were lethal weapons and we often broke them off and fought with them.

I miss all this, and I mourn the fact that my daughters will not experience it.

Of course there are down sides to very cold winters - car breakdowns, burst pipes, slips and falls and higher heating bills. Severe winters can be miserable affairs, with deaths from hypothermia and transport chaos. But prolonged, heavy rain is a killer too, and, when we get it days after day, week after week, it’s hugely depressing.

Everything is damp, sodden and dripping. I now walk around with an umbrella in my bag - something I have never done. I hate the contraption and would rather get wet. But there’s wet and there’s wet. The other day I got totally drenched walking 100 yards from the car to the supermarket and back.

Back-to-back storms are not typical British weather. What is Typically British, and true whatever the weather, is that we are always totally unprepared for whatever comes our way.