Anyone who lived in the south east of
England, and was awake during the night of 15th – 16th
October 1987, will never forget the great storm. My 12th birthday
was just two weeks prior, but even now at 39 years old the events are
still quite clear to me.
The day before the storm we’d had a charity
event at school, raising money by running laps round our playing field. We even
got to meet Olympian swimmer Sharron Davies before for a photo shoot and I was
lucky enough to have a chat with her (about toast) as the photographer had to
change his film before proceeding with my photo. It was a terribly blustery and
wet day, and when I got home, I recall my Dad (a keen weather enthusiast)
noting that it was going to be very windy during the night.
Having gone to sleep, the next thing I
knew was my Dad waking me and my brother up and in a calm voice he simply
said:
"Get up, there's a hurricane
outside!"
Even in my half-awake state, being the
cock-sure-know-it-all youth a year shy of being a teenager, I
retorted quick as a flash with "we don't get hurricanes in this
country."
I'd barely finished the
words, when the roaring noise hit my ears and shut me up! Technically it
wasn't an official hurricane (Michael Fish was right!) but to all intents and purposes it felt
like one at the time.
My Dad told us to get dressed as quickly as
possible and go downstairs. This wasn't altogether unusual for me as my Dad
often woke me in the middle of the night to watch thunderstorms with him, but
as I began to dress I found myself staring in disbelief out of the
window at a group of sixty feet tall, hundred year old trees
thrashing back and forth at impossible angles, all being lit up in the middle
of the normally dark night by what seemed like constant lightning.
We made our way downstairs to find my Mum
huddled up on the sofa and crying. Storms at the best of times used to frighten
her, but this was a different storm to anything we'd heard or seen before. The
constant roar was immense and didn’t seem to let up at all. Within minutes of
going downstairs the loudest, most scary crashing noise I had ever heard in my
life made all of us scream and jump. Before we had a chance to consider what it
might have been, it happened again - and again! It was the roof. It was literally
being lifted off its weakened supports and was crashing back down to somewhere
near to where it was propped before.
Where we lived was at the time one of
the highest locations on Foredown Hill in Portslade, so we were
obviously a bit exposed to potentially damaging gusts. My Dad didn't waste
any time at all in deciding we'd actually be safer elsewhere. We daren't even
go upstairs again for fear of being injured or worse. My Grandparents
lived on the other side of the village in Drove Crescent, Portslade which was
also on a hill, albeit significantly lower and better protected, so my Dad
decided we should head over there - it was no more than a 10 minute walk and
we'd be there in no time. Or so we thought!
Having grabbed what extra warm clothes we
could from downstairs we abandoned the house and started the mile
long trek to my grandparents. That said, we'd only just started
walking, when I shouted out: "there's a tree in the road!"
- I had to shout as the wind was too loud to talk normally.
 |
| Foredown Road |
Sure enough about halfway down Foredown Road, a
massive tree had come crashing down and blocked our route. Several other
trees had come down too and we literally had to climb four or five feet over
the trees to get down the road. Once we got through and down into the valley
the wind was less, but this proved to be short-lived as we slowly fought the
gusts climbing up Drove Crescent.
As if this wasn't enough we encountered the new danger of roof tiles
flying at us from all angles. My Dad suffered a blow straight to his mouth
from a piece of debris and he was lucky to get away with a
couple of chipped teeth. Me and my Brother can't remember it, but my Dad
insists he tied books to the sides of our heads to protect us before we'd left
the house – this became a source of mirth over the years as my Dad more and
more insisted that’s what he did – he also thought he put a crash helmet on my
brother! We’re still unconvinced we had any form of head gear! Anyways, we
arrived at my Grandparents without any further injuries.
They were both awake already and had lit
several candles as the power cut was now widespread and in fact the only
other light was the arcing of the nearby power lines. My Grandad kept
hearing tiles coming off his roof and wanted to go outside to check! It took my
Dad some effort to keep pulling him back indoors as it was obviously highly
dangerous. We stayed there till the sun rose some 3 hours later, the
storm having done its worst.
Shortly after sunrise my Dad left us to
return home to see how the house looked. He eventually came back to us a couple
of hours later, bringing with him some more clothes and the news that two trees
had come to rest on the house and porch roofs. Though anxious to get home to
have a look, we actually took a bit of a tour around Portslade to see the
incredible aftermath of the storm. Walking through the carnage of dozens of
cars crushed by trees and hundreds of tiles all around us,
it was an incredible experience to take in, although excitement is an
inappropriate term as tragically some fatalities had occurred.
We detoured to view the devastation at Easthill Park. There were hundreds of trees down,
and the park was never the same again. I wish I’d taken a photo of how the
old play park looked as I can only recall it in my mind’s eye now. It was
demolished shortly after to make way for new trees which was a real shame
because that type of ‘industrial’ play park is not really to be found anymore.
Certainly the apparatus were scarier than you’d expect to see in the bark
chippings and rubber laden parks that started to appear everywhere in the mid
1990’s.
Despite the immense damage all around, it
struck me just how beautifully bright, sunny and eerily peaceful it was. No-one
would ever have guessed what had just happened. Indeed when
recounting my story to my friends at school (once it had
reopened) I remember some telling me that they'd slept through the whole
event!
My mates said that we must've been mad
to go out in that weather, but upon arriving home and seeing the damage to the
house, I was convinced my Dad's judgement had been sound and that we were
indeed safer and better off having abandoned the house.
Having got home we saw that amazingly most of the roof was still in
place, though many dozen tiles were spread about the area, and the porch had a
huge tree embedded in it.
As we started the immense task of
cleaning up, I remember my Mum's boss turning up almost to check to see if
she had a valid reason for not going to work!
The Cul-De-Sac we lived in only housed
6 premises, and our house was really the only one that suffered
damage, but all the neighbours rallied round to help clear the debris
and saw up chunks of massive trees in order to get our home back to normal.
Stereotypical as it may now sound in these more enlightened and equality
driven times, but the men cleared the paths as the women and the children
supplied the tea, horlicks and bacon sandwiches to them. No-one
complained, and neighbours who had barely spoken to each other were all now
getting on with the job in hand.
Things were back to normal pretty soon, though we had
a deja vu moment in January 1990 with a lesser daytime storm which brought
it's own excitement as we were dragged out of school, but I'll never forget
that night when the fantasy of a ‘storm in a film’ became reality.
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