IF you think you are feeling the pinch of the cold January breeze this year, then take heart and cast your mind back to York winters past.

These pictures of Rowntree Park from the seventies and eighties provide a timely reminder of just how mild our new millennium winters have been.

Here, frost, snow and ice cover the trees and shrubs in Rowntree Park in March 1970, while in December 1985 children, bundled up in coats and gloves, slid or skated on the frozen lake.

In February 1980 things were a bit brighter as the winter sun broke through to shine on the house and caf.

In the light of global warming, the days of snowmen, frozen rivers and lakes increasingly have become the stuff of memory.

These pictures show just how much the British climate has changed in a relatively short space of time.

So take heart that the chill of winter will eventually lead to the bloom of spring.

Updated: 10:34 Friday, January 03, 2003