Gearing up to test my winter driving skills 

I don’t pretend to be a winter wizard behind the wheel, but there is something splendidly exhilarating about being in charge of a ton of metal which at any moment could turn from a docile and friendly family saloon to a supercharged toboggan with a mind entirely of its own.

There was just enough ice on Saturday to get the emergency skid warning lights flashing on the dashboard, much to Mrs Hextol’s consternation, but I like to think I was always in some semblance of control.

I once read somewhere that in extremis, one should steer into a skid, rather than trying to fight it.

But when the car is birling around like John Curry, I find it impossible to know which is in or out, and favour the close your eyes and hope for the best technique.

It’s been some years since we had a snowfall of more than a couple of inches, but the last one was a bit of a tester for those of us who live in Bellingham.

The main road was open for most of the time, but the problem was getting out of the estate, which comes well down the list of priorities set by Northumberland County Council for sending out its snowploughs.

It’s very much a case of do it yourself, with wellies, snow shovels, abundant supplies of grit and neighbourly assistance required in generous measure.

One technique I am happy to share is to place the car mats under the wheels when stuck, as they provide excellent grip in the snowiest of conditions.

Another is to get Mrs Hextol to drive, for she is as proficient at keeping the car moving in slippery conditions as those cloth capped and moustachioed Terry Thomas types, who used to take wire-wheeled sports cars up precipitous slopes on Grandstand many years ago.

Once on the main road, it’s a matter of keeping the momentum going, and hoping you don’t get behind one of those doddery dolts who makes an arthritic sloth look like Usain Bolt and wonders why he can’t get up a gentle slope in his Vauxhall Corsa.

I have seldom been defeated by the snow, apart from one day when returning from a rugby match at the old County Ground in Gosforth to find it had snowed in my absence.

While there was nothing in Newcastle, conditions grew worse as I headed north up the A696, and I still don’t know what possessed me to attempt to take my little Mini over the single track road from Knowesgate past Sweethope Lough to the A68.

I got a couple of hundred yards before becoming irretrievably embedded in a drift, and had to knock on the door of a local farmhouse, where a taciturn farmer and his silent son dragged me out with their tractor.

Expressing eternal gratitude, I resumed my journey – and got stuck again, and they were even more taciturn when they dragged me out again and advised, in no uncertain terms, that perhaps I should take a different route this time.

My penchant for slithering around in snow was perhaps nurtured on a Macclesfield hill known as the Big Dipper, where sledging was always a hit and miss business – with a lot more hit than miss.

Hordes of children would drag their sledges to the top of the hill, which had a little ski jump in the middle, from which sledges would careen at all angles, usually into the children endeavouring to climb up from the bottom.

There were invariably a horde of big lads at the top of the hill, without sledges of their own, who would relieve youngsters of their snowmobiles, but only after they had been hauled to the top of the hill.

No-one dared argue with the long of arm and low of brow hoodlums, but there was once a muffled cheer when one of them overshot the end of the field and broke through the ice of the pond in the neighbouring field.

They never bothered us too much, for we had a secret weapon in the form of our Staffordshire bull terrier Judy, who used to drag our sledge up the hill attached to her collar.

She was the gentlest dog on the planet, but she could put on a very fierce look when required, and like all bullies, the big lads left us alone.