In hand-knitted chunky knit sweaters, nylon padded jackets, bobble hats, and with noses dripping, a generation of hardy Scots skiers set off in their masses for the thrill of being blown back uphill by a force 10 gale.

They battled through blizzards and thick fog, waited in endless queues for a tow uphill in order to snowplough down icy patches of the White Lady ski run with gritted teeth wearing leather boots and skies that seemed to be 10ft long.

Learners had bums stuck out, knees clenched together and poles poking dangerously at right angles to their bodies, while experts could parallel turn and conquer bumps to come to a hockey stop, Roger Moore-like, without a hair out of place.

Scotland’s ski slopes were a hive of activity in the 1960 and 1970s, as the sport took off and everyone wanted a slice of glamorous Alpine action.

Now memories of those early days of Scottish skiing and other winter sports are to be revived at a specially-curated showing of films which captured bygone times when winter meant knee-deep snow, lochs covered in thick ice and no Gore-Tex in sight.

The National Library of Scotland’s Cine(sthesia) event at the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow next month will feature flickering film footage of skiers exploring Cairngorm’s newly-developed slopes and learning the basics of skiing in attire which could scarcely be less like today’s expensive high-tech waterproof designer kit.

There will also be a flashback to an age when folks in heavy tweeds took to the ice for some outdoor curling and ice skating on frozen lakes, often with formal shirt and tie worn beneath their cosy sweaters.

The films are a mix of professional and amateur footage, including shots of Scots families at play in snow-covered gardens and at local golf courses, enjoying snowball fights or simply recording familiar spots blanketed in mounds of fresh snow.

According to the National Library of Scotland’s head of moving image and sound collections, Alison Stevenson, the films show Scots embracing the great outdoors in the depths of winter, unfazed by the plunging temperatures and clearly happy to be venturing outdoors without the benefits of modern, high-tech insulating fabrics.

“Some of the joy in these films is simply watching people enjoying sport and learning how to do it, and some is seeing the fashions, the bobble hats, tweeds and plus fours and the children who are outdoors in their woolly jumpers with their shirt and tie on underneath,” she explains.

One of the earliest film dates from 1928 and shows people enjoying a day’s skating and curling on a frozen loch. Another captures Kirkwall in Orkney when crowds gathered to play their traditional New Year’s Day handball game.

Many of the scenes, however, showcase Scots getting to grips with the relatively new sport of skiing.

“One film shows a family learning to ski in the Cairngorms. You can see the excitement as they try on skis for the first time, and then learning how to turn and getting onto the slopes,” she adds.

“Another shows a family, the dad drops his ski and of course it runs down the slope away from him. This is the Campsies, there are no tows, and so he has to run down the hill to get his ski and walk back up again.”

Helen Rennie, 65, from Inverness, who has skied on Scotland’s slopes every month for the past 10 years, remembers taking up the sport in the Cairngorms in the mid-1970s when the ski boom was reaching its peak.

“It was very different then. It was incredibly busy, we would be standing around nine rows deep waiting to get on the White Lady tow,” she says.

“The lower car park would be filled with buses from all over the country including many from England.

“You’d find bus after bus after bus on the road to the car park.”

It would be years before the now mothballed funicular railway was introduced to take skiers uphill in enclosed comfort. However, the Cairngorm slopes at the time boasted more lifts and tows to whisk skiers uphill than are available now.

The once-bustling Coire na Ciste chairlifts were ripped out in autumn 2017, the and the West Wall chairlift, White Lady T-bar, Fiacaill T-bar and the Aonach Poma which, along with the White Lady chairlift which made way for the troubled funicular railway, have all disappeared.

Rennie recalls: “The runs were busy and the queues were huge – there was an awful lot of standing about – but people were much more patient than now.

“Because there were so many skiers going down the runs, tremendous moguls would form. As a result, there were many brilliant mogul skiers.

“Now there aren’t enough skiers and enough traffic to create them, which is a huge shame.”

Skiing in Scotland took off in 1956 when former Spitfire pilot Philip Rankin from Glasgow quit his engineering job to pursue his dream of creating the first permanent ski lift in the country on the northern slopes of Meall a’Bhuiridh in Glencoe.

Before then, temporary homemade ski tows had helped skiers reach the snowy peaks but none were of the same scale and capacity of the first proper fixed tow.

Installed in summer of 1955 at a cost of £5,000, it was capable of whisking 250 skiers an hour to the slopes. However, there was still a lung-bursting hike required uphill from the car park to reach it, resulting in the construction in 1959 of the access chairlift.

The arrival of proper lift equipment opened the hills up to enthusiasts who had never before considered themselves skiers and would certainly never have considered climbing hundreds of metres uphill carrying heavy skies over their shoulders and in clunky ski boots in return for a slide down that lasted mere minutes.

By 1961, the £36,000 Cairngorm chairlift, capable of carrying 500 skiers an hour, heralded the dawn of skiing in the area and launched Aviemore as Scotland’s winter playground.

The Cairnwell chairlift at Glenshee opened the following year, and soon Scotland’s ski slopes were attracting an estimated one million skiers every season to their slopes.

However, the arrival of cheap foreign ski holidays and the prospect of lengthy downhill runs, crisp snow and blue skies lured many away from Scottish slopes to European resorts.

Meanwhile, away from the slopes, outdoor skating and curling faded, with indoor rinks offering year-round ice.

However, in a slight twist of fortunes, it appears there are signs of a slightly different Scottish ski boom among adventurous skiers. Perhaps jaded by the prospect of conquering the same old runs or seeking new challenges, rising numbers are said to be taking up ski touring, taking skis with skins and adapted bindings, and hiking to untouched areas for downhill thrills.

“Ski touring is booming at the moment,” says Rennie. “I was skiing last week, there were no tows in operation but the hill was mobbed with people skiing in amazing snow.

“It’s probably never been more popular.”

Cine(Sthesia): Winter Sports is at the Kelvin Hall, Argyle Street, Glasgow, on December 13 and 14.