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Dozens of schools as far south as Kent and Gloucestershire stayed shut on the first day of the new term yesterday after snow and ice swept down the country and temperatures barely managed to rise above freezing all day.

The AA received more than 2,500 calls per hour during the rush hour, and by the end of the day it had dealt with more than twice the usual number of breakdowns.

The charity Age Concern urged the elderly to take extra care during the cold spell, which is expected to last until at least the weekend.

Times Archive, 1947: Big Ben's chimes frozen

Midnight listeners noted sympathetically a lapse on the part of Big Ben under the influence of the frost. Only a few fragmentary notes of the well-known chimes were sounded and then the clock struck once. After that there was silence

• More snow today, 1963

• The great storm, 1891

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Aaron Ross, the chief executive of FirstCare, which has been monitoring employment absences since 2004, claimed that 8.3 per cent of the British workforce – a theoretical total of 2.4 million people – were either off sick or failed to make it to work yesterday. “We knew that it would be bad, but we didn’t think it would be as bad as this,” he said. “It has been phenomenal.”

The cold snap, deeper and more prolonged than has been seen in Britain since 1996, has prompted William Hill to offer odds of only 8-1 that people will be able to skate on the Serpentine in London by the middle of January as, even in the capital, temperatures also fell towards freezing.

Police in Cumbria tried to dissuade people from venturing on to the frozen surface of Derwentwater in the Lake District after spotting children and families playing on the ice well away from the shore.

The Met Office issued severe weather warnings in London and parts of eastern and southeastern England for today, as temperatures were expected to dip to minus 3C (26.6F) overnight, even in central parts of the city.

Gordon Lishman, director-general of Age Concern, said: “With predictions of more snow and freezing temperatures this week, we are urging vulnerable older people, who are more susceptible to the cold, to take extra precautions to stay warm and keep active.”

He called for the Government to implement an automatic benefits payment system to ensure that pensioners received all the help to which they were entitled. He said: “Many of the poorest pensioners are struggling to afford paying for essentials such as food and heating. Yet, despite this, up to £5 billion in benefits is still going unclaimed.”

He said that anyone who was worried about high energy bills should call the charity’s free helpline on 0800 009966.

Overnight temperatures this week are expected to reach minus 10C in parts of Cheshire and Shropshire, and parts of Oxfordshire, Suffolk and the Welsh Borders could experience temperatures as low as minus 8C.

John Hammond, of the Met Office, said: “We haven’t had spells of cold like this for some time. It looks like it’s been the coldest December since 1996, and cold weather is really ruling the roost at the moment.”

Water companies are warning customers to protect their water systems, as water pipes are freezing even with heating systems on at full blast.

It has been predicted that nearly 7,000 working days per 100,000 workers will be lost to the British economy this week, as flu and coughs add to the financial woes of struggling businesses. It is thought that cold and flu viruses were the cause of almost half of the absences from work yesterday.