In February 1963 the Thames was frozen so solid at Kingston that an impromptu footpath formed between Queen's Promenade and the opposite bank.

Lifelong borough resident Horace Briggs remembers taking his first steps across the river with a friend only for other groups of the intrepid to follow them.

Mr Briggs, a keen photographer, took a picture of three youngsters walking across the river which made it to the front page of the 1963 Comet.

Forty-one years later, inspired by a recent June Sampson article on the history of Charter Quay, Mr Briggs has sent in a second photograph taken at the time from Kingston Bridge.

According to Mr Briggs, 85, temperatures in Kingston were below freezing for two weeks and even barges were unable to make any headway along the river.

The winter of 1963 was in fact the coldest since 1740 and much of south-east England was covered in snow from Boxing Day to early March.

The Thames was so heavily frozen that no boats could go any further upstream than Kingston.

In his book Frosts, Freezes and Fairs, Ian Currie wrote: "There was merriment at Queens Promenade, Kingston, where people flocked to skate on the Thames. Off Tagg's Island, Hampton Court workers rode bicycles up and down the river."

The Comet of the time reported three-storey icicles forming on some buildings in the town centre.

Working at camera company Micro Position Products, which had offices on the riverside where Charter Quay is now, Mr Briggs could see the river slowly freezing over.

When he took his first tentative steps on the frozen surface he was only following the example of his father who had walked across the Thames in the last big freeze of 1895.

Of course the riverside area was very different in 1963 and the large building shown in the photograph is Kingston tannery.

Mr Briggs says: "You could really smell it in Kingston when they were tanning hides."

Along with the lack of smell, Mr Briggs believes the opening up of the riverside footpath has also improved the area.

He adds: "My wife and I often walk along the river from Surbiton all the way to Teddington. It's lovely along there now."