In 1963 a giant snowman in Aberdeen became a global sensation attracting visitors from afar and making headlines across the world.
And now, more than 60 years later, the 17ft 2inches snowman built by four enterprising teenagers is going viral online once again.
The word iconic is bandied around too often, but this photo is probably one of the most memorable in Aberdeen Journals’ archives, making the front page of the Evening Express on January 1963.
Roddy Stuart and friends built giant snowman during Big Freeze of 1963
The feat took place in January 1963 when Britain was in the bitter grip of the Big Freeze, which started on Boxing Day 1962 and endured for another three months.
It was described as ‘the winter to end all winters’, and first footers were warned to think twice about heading out that Hogmanay.
Parts of Buchan were completely cut off, and Royal Mail had to send post to Banff by train after its truck got stuck in drifts at Newmachar.
And in Aberdeen it meant there was a decent dump of snow for a day off school to enjoy sledging, snowball fights – and build snowmen.
Roddy Stuart, then aged 16, his brother Michael, 21, sister Leslie, 18, and her boyfriend David Leslie, 20, got to work on his snowman outside the Stuart family home.
The siblings’ dad Roderick Stuart was then deputy head teacher of Powis Academy.
It took Roddy and the rest of the group the afternoon and most of the evening of Wednesday, January 2, 1963, to build it.
Soon their creation in the front garden of 29 Westholme Avenue, complete with a basket hat and pipe, dwarfed the property.
From Aberdeen to America – huge snowman made global headlines
Propped up by a long ladder, the finished snowman reached the lofty heights of 17ft 2in tall.
Unsurprisingly it created quite a stir, and attracted lots of passersby keen to be photographed next to the creation.
It also caught the attention of the press, not only appearing in the Evening Express, but in international newspapers too.
Photos even appeared in a local paper in Setauket in New York state, and the tale of the Scottish snowman reached a five-year-old girl in Florida.
Captivated, young Victoria Aitken wrote a letter to Aberdeen addressed to “snowman builder Roddy”.
She said: “Dear Roddy, I thought you might be happy to see how far your talents have reached in this wonderful world of ours.”
Roddy duly responded to Victoria and enclosed an article from the Evening Express alongside two photos.
Another letter from America saw snowman make the news again in 2012
The snowman story came to light again in 2012 when 58 years later Victoria found the newspaper clipping and photographs.
She contacted the Evening Express to see if she could once again get in touch with the famous snowman builders.
The group saw the plea, and at the time David Leslie said “it was a cold blast from the past”.
By 2012 they had all retired, and David and Leslie had long since married.
Michael said he was “very surprised to hear about the snowman after all these years”.
He added: “I never imagined people would be looking at it across a continent or that I would be hearing it again now (in 2012).”
Despite other worthy attempts over the years in Aberdeen, nobody has surpassed the efforts of Roddy, Michael, Leslie and David.
Other giant snowmen in Aberdeen that didn’t quite reach the lofty heights of 17ft
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