:00:01. > :00:11.it for now. There'll be more from the Newsroom at 10:00pm. Stay with
:00:11. > :00:16.
:00:16. > :00:19.us on BBC One, it's time for the Good evening from BBC London News.
:00:19. > :00:21.I'm Alice Bhandhukravi. Hundreds of tube workers have gone on strike in
:00:22. > :00:24.a long-running row over Bank Holiday pay. Transport for London
:00:24. > :00:34.says there's been significant disruption to services with parts
:00:34. > :00:36.
:00:36. > :00:40.of the network suspended. Sonja Jessup has this report. Not what
:00:40. > :00:46.shoppers at Bond Street wanted to hear. Some of the tube was running,
:00:46. > :00:52.but with a reduced service. Surprising. It's closed. Terrible
:00:52. > :00:56.trying to get home, because the bus will be so full of people. Still,
:00:56. > :00:59.never underestimate the determination of a West End sales
:01:00. > :01:05.shopper. Some braved the roads, with no congestion charge and free
:01:05. > :01:08.parking. Others made the most of extra buses. But some, like Matt,
:01:08. > :01:15.who had already had his Arsenal game postponed because of the
:01:15. > :01:19.strike, were fed up. It's selfish. We have to get up to a bus and wait
:01:19. > :01:23.for 40 minutes and then the tube. haven't had a pay rise for two
:01:23. > :01:28.years and I haven't gone on strike. This was the third Boxing Day
:01:28. > :01:32.strike in as many years. ASLEF wants extra pay and conditions for
:01:32. > :01:37.working the bank holiday. Transport bosses say their pay already takes
:01:37. > :01:43.that into account. Drivers earn �47,000 a year. They are well paid
:01:43. > :01:47.for a professional job. I can't pay for that twice. ASLEF says since
:01:47. > :01:51.the deal was done in the 1990s things have changed. More people
:01:51. > :01:56.use trains on Boxing Day and the ability for people who work those
:01:56. > :02:00.trains to have a proportion of them or reasonable proportional times
:02:00. > :02:05.off doesn't exist. Further action is planned for 18th January and
:02:05. > :02:12.25th. By then, many more Londoners will be back at work. For commuters,
:02:12. > :02:15.it could be a miserable start to 2013. 50 years ago the big freeze
:02:15. > :02:17.brought chaos to the capital's streets. Four inches of snow
:02:17. > :02:20.arrived on Boxing Day and Arctic winds from Siberia soon followed.
:02:20. > :02:30.The result was one of the harshest winters Londoners have ever faced.
:02:30. > :02:34.
:02:34. > :02:38.Karl Mercer looks back. Now it's Siberia. Britain is snowed to a
:02:38. > :02:42.standstill. Indeed it was, for two months. The country froze, battered
:02:42. > :02:47.by blizzards and snow drifts that had started as simple festive fun,
:02:47. > :02:51.but the fun soon dropped out. As the freeze went on, transport
:02:51. > :02:55.started hitting problems. Milk bottles were lost in the drifts.
:02:55. > :02:59.You just couldn't get a decent root vegetable at a fair price. Down
:02:59. > :03:04.here in the market prices for vegetables seem to be up by at
:03:04. > :03:09.least 30%. You can't get a Swede for love nor money. Can I interrupt
:03:09. > :03:13.you. Are the prices up? Yes, sir. Our prices are up according to the
:03:13. > :03:18.transport and difficulties in getting in and us pulling our guts
:03:18. > :03:23.out to get it to the public. There was a young man called Fish,
:03:23. > :03:28.Michael Fish. A new boy at the Met Office in Gatwick, starting his
:03:28. > :03:32.career in the freeze of the century. Started work on 5th November 1962
:03:32. > :03:36.and the severe weather started shortly after on Boxing Day and
:03:36. > :03:40.went through into 1963. I was lucky, because for the first and only time
:03:40. > :03:47.in my career, because I was only an office boy making tea, I didn't
:03:47. > :03:52.have to work over Christmas and the new year. In the middle it started
:03:52. > :03:55.snowing and in the early hours we started to try to get home and
:03:55. > :03:59.drove. We had to abandon the car after a short distance and walk the
:03:59. > :04:03.rest of the way on foot. When we came back the next morning to pick
:04:03. > :04:08.the car up, we couldn't find it. It was completely buried. The wind was
:04:08. > :04:11.so cold that the sea froze on the Essex coast. All of which made it
:04:11. > :04:16.very exciting for the weathermen. Nothing more boring than a dry,
:04:16. > :04:24.sunny day. Oh, yes, blizzards, chaos and confusion, gorgeous, yeah.
:04:24. > :04:32.But at least we have been through the big freeze. Here's a look at
:04:32. > :04:36.the weather now with Georgina the weather now with Georgina
:04:36. > :04:39.Burnett. More wet weather on the way. In the morning, we have a band
:04:39. > :04:43.of heavy rain moving in. Should be dry in the afternoon, but remaining
:04:43. > :04:47.cloudy, with a bit of a breeze to temper mild temperatures. Then the
:04:47. > :04:52.rest of the week is looking quite unsettled. Until we get to Sunday,
:04:52. > :04:53.where we have a day of sunshine and scattered showers, but the