Meet the Author: Juliet Nicolson, Frostquake

Welcome to our series of Author talks at The National Archives

In the harsh winter of 1962-3, when author Juliet Nicholson was just eight years old, snow drifted across Britain for ten uninterrupted weeks. In that time, London milkmen made deliveries on skis, 2,000 Dartmoor ponies were buried in the snow and starving foxes ate sheep alive.

Juliet's latest work, Frostquake , examines these remarkable events as a pivotal moment in British history. The threat of nuclear war had reached its terrifying height with the recent Cuban Missile Crisis. Unemployment was on the rise, de Gaulle was blocking Britain from joining the European Economic Community, Winston Churchill, still the symbol of Great Britishness, was fading. And yet underneath the frozen surface, new life was beginning to stir. A new breed of satirists threatened the complacent decadence of the British establishment. A game-changing band from Liverpool topped the charts. Scandals such as the Profumo Affair exposed racial and sexual prejudice.

In conversation with our records specialist, Mark Dunton, Juliet discusses Frostquake and how, when the thaw came, it became clear that ten weeks of extraordinary weather had acted as a catalyst between two distinct eras. From poets to pop stars, shopkeepers to schoolchildren, and in Juliet's own family.

This talk will conclude with a live Q&A.

About the Author

Juliet Nicolson is the author of two works of history, The Great Silence: 1918-1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War and The Perfect Summer: Dancing into Shadow in 1911; and a family memoir, A House Full of Daughters. She lives with her husband in East Sussex, not far from Sissinghurst, where she spent her childhood.

This online talk will be presented on Teams. You will be emailed an access link shortly before the event is due to start.