The city in snow

Text 1: The Great Frost, by Clara Wentworth

An original letter written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

My dear Fanny, the lake in the park has been frozen these four days, and I believe the whole city has gone mad upon it. You never saw such a sight. Apprentices and bishops, nursemaids and old gentlemen in fur collars, all go sliding and tumbling together, and nobody minds in the least whom he falls upon. I saw a stout alderman sit down very suddenly beside a chimney sweep, and the two of them laughed until they could not get up.

Papa, who has not been seen to run since the Waterloo year, borrowed a pair of skates from a boy for a penny and went round the island twice with his coat tails flying. Mamma pretended to be shocked but I saw her smile behind her muff. Men are selling hot chestnuts and gingerbread at the edge, and there is a fiddler on the ice.

The thaw is promised for Monday. I think we all feel that when it comes the city will go back to minding its manners, and the alderman will not know the sweep if he passes him in the street. But for this one week we are all children together.

Text 2: Snow Day, by Marcus Elwood

An original contemporary article.

When I woke on Tuesday the city had vanished under six inches of snow, and by nine o’clock the whole of our street was in the park. The schools had closed, the buses had given up, and apparently nobody was going to work. On the big hill, toddlers in snowsuits, teenagers on tea trays and a woman in a business suit on a bin bag were all hurtling down together, crashing into each other at the bottom in a heap of apologies and laughter.

My neighbour Mr Okonjo, a retired accountant I have only ever seen washing his car, borrowed a sledge from a seven-year-old and went down the steepest slope on his stomach, shouting. His wife filmed it, pretending to disapprove. Someone had set up a table selling hot chocolate from a flask for charity.

By Thursday it will be grey slush and we will all be back on the train, staring at our phones and avoiding each other’s eyes. But for one day the rules were suspended, and grown adults were allowed to be eight years old again.

Both writers describe their city transformed by snow and ice.

What are the similarities between the ways people behave in the two texts?

Draw on evidence from both texts to support your answer.