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ventaThe BBC has just reminded me that it's twenty years today since the "Great Storm" in 1987. Among people my age - old enough to rember it, not really old enough to appreciate that it was more than a spot of run-of-the-mill bad weather - I suspect it's most commonly remembered as the storm which arrived in defiance of Michael Fish's jocular remarks that there was no need to worry. That he didn't really say that is largely irrelevant, of course; some stories are too big to be squashed by their own fallacy.
On the night of the Great Storm I was camping in a tent. Fortunately, only in a friend's back garden. We were determined to stay there - she had 50p riding on it, as her brother had bet we would wuss out even before the weather worsened. Her mother became increasingly determined as the night wore on that we were coming in the house. Her mother won, and I still remember being surprised the following morning by the wreckage of the garden: the large, heavy camping stove we'd cooked on the night before thrown across the lawn and the tent demolished.
I don't think the north got it nearly as badly as the south east did. Anyone else have any particular memories of it ?
On the night of the Great Storm I was camping in a tent. Fortunately, only in a friend's back garden. We were determined to stay there - she had 50p riding on it, as her brother had bet we would wuss out even before the weather worsened. Her mother became increasingly determined as the night wore on that we were coming in the house. Her mother won, and I still remember being surprised the following morning by the wreckage of the garden: the large, heavy camping stove we'd cooked on the night before thrown across the lawn and the tent demolished.
I don't think the north got it nearly as badly as the south east did. Anyone else have any particular memories of it ?
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Date: 2007-10-16 09:08 pm (UTC)Even Will
Date: 2007-10-16 11:47 pm (UTC)I also recall the January 1990, "Burns night", gales as being a year earlier! Reading the BBC links above I found my recollection was that they happened in 1989, more power lines and trees down etc. I actually spent an evening after work with a friend doing contract work for the local council, clearing fallen trees from blocked roads. Scary but fun. For example a roadside Oak with a trunk diameter of about 4ft, not quite resting on the ground because its weight was being held by a mains power cable. The Oak was almost horizontal, the power line was STRETCHED down from two telegraph poles. They were almost upright. When we cut away the branch(es) that were hooked over the cable the "spring" tension in the cable flung the branch(es) about 100ft across the adjoining field. As far as we knew the cables were still live!
Another recollection from 1987. A friend, an Agricultural Engineer, who wanted to visit his mother (in the next village, 2 miles away) couldn't get out of his village in that direction for fallen trees. He chose an alternative route that passed two American airbases (two of the biggest in Europe). This would have been 10 to 15 miles. The importance of these bases would have meant that the roads were cleared as a priority. It took him two hours with a chainsaw to cut his way out of his own village at the start of this trip.
Will
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Date: 2007-10-17 08:23 am (UTC)I wasn't very away, only in Ruth's back garden. I was actually a bit mystified as to why I would have been camping there on a Thursday night in October.