In January 1947 Britain’s severest winter weather of the twentieth century hit, in tandem with a coal shortage. On location in Cardiff, Ronald Reagan shivered when the coin-operated heater in his Cardiff hotel ran out on one of the chilliest nights of 1948. Christopher Isherwood, on a rare visit back from America, summarised it thus: “Two or three of my friends said to me then: ‘Believe us, this is worse than the war!’”