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Glasgow Live
Glasgow Live
National
David McLean

How Glasgow's 'worst winter on record' gave the world rock gods AC/DC

For more than 40 years, AC/DC have been one of the coolest rock groups on the planet - almost as cool as the Glasgow winter that gave Angus and Malcolm Young Australian passports.

Intense blizzards swept across Scotland in the early months of 1963, with temperatures dipping to as low as -22 in some regions. It was the worst winter on record.

The snow started falling on Christmas Eve 1962, and pretty much didn't stop until the following spring. Lakes and rivers froze, pipes burst, transport ground to a halt and food supplies became scarce. It was a nightmare.

READ MORE: Glasgow school register offers fascinating insight into AC/DC's Cranhill origins

The freezing temperatures caused so much misery that hundreds of families decided to ditch Scotland for good in favour of sunnier climes.

Among those looking for a bit of warmth were William and Margaret Young and their eight children living at 6 Skerryvore Road in Cranhill, east Glasgow.

With high unemployment and few prospects, Cranhill was a tough place to be at the time and the bitter winter of 1963 was the final straw for the Youngs.

Taking advantage of the 'ten pound poms' assisted travel scheme that helped families emigrate to Australia, the Young family, save for two of the older boys, moved to Sydney in June 1963.

Few could have predicted that the youngest of the Youngs, brothers Angus and Malcolm, aged 8 and 10 respectively, would one day form a group that would sell more than 200 million albums worldwide.

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In his book AC/DC: Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be, author Mick Wall wrote: “It was the winter of 1963, the worst on record, given its own rotten name, the Great Freeze, snow up to the top of the front door, ice causing all the pipes to burst.

"The idea of swapping such heart-stopping drudgery for a life on the beach, as the Youngs thought of Oz, suddenly seemed like a bloody good one.”

While it was hard for the family at first (they initially lived in a migrant hostel) the move would prove to be just the ticket for the Youngs, with several of the children going on to strike it rich as professional musicians.

First to experience success was older brother George Young. In 1966, George's band the Easybeats scored an international hit with the classic rock and roll track Friday on My Mind.

Speaking about his family's arrival in Australia, George Young said: “We came from quite a poor family in Glasgow and the reason we went there is because my dad was out of work. He was out of work for years.

“It was a chance. There were job opportunities, so the next thing we were all on our way. We saw brochures and it looked phenomenal."

Inspired by their older sibling, brothers Malcolm and Angus Young formed AC/DC in 1973. They would go on to become one of the biggest rock acts the world has ever known.

While music clearly ran in the veins of the Young brothers, it's hard to imagine a heavy rock outfit like AC/DC emerging out of punk-obsessed Scotland in the late 1970s

Had the family not made the move to Oz, there's every chance Angus and the late Malcolm would have formed a rock band, but perhaps favouring aggressive three-chord punk over stadium-filling bluesy riffs and face-melting guitar solos.

To put it another way, the bitterly cold Glasgow winter of 1963 gave the world AC/DC.

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