Windjammer Landing

I was reminded that today is the 25th anniversary of the 1987 hurricane that hit South East England during that particular evening.
I lived in Chiswick in West London at the time, and was fortunate enough to work in the office over the road. I was often to be seen rushing over the road at the slightest hint of rain, to get my washing in from the line. I was also fortunate enough to go home for lunch when the fancy took me and on some occasions I would be accompanied. Those were the days.

On the night of the hurricane, I have no recollection of the famous weather forecast presented by Michael Fish when he assured everybody there would only be strong winds and it would be nothing to worry about. I sleep through most things, although I do recall waking in the night to the rattle of the window in the bedroom.

For some reason I was sleeping in the spare room that night. Now whether that was because I was decorating I really cannot recall, but when the alarm went off, and the radio came on I do remember the radio announcer saying there was wide spread devastation over South East England. I got washed and dressed and then looked out of the window to see somebody else's shed roof in the garden, and a couple of fences down further up the road, but it was not until i got outside that I saw there had, indeed, been some stormy weather.

One tree down the road was leaning against the front of a house, and there were branches and boughs strewn all over the place. Car bonnets had been caved in, and tiles lay all over the road. I was lucky to avoid any property damage and after a brief inspection I walked over the road to work.

This is where the fun started. 'How did you get here?' asked the security guard. 'I don't know how I am going to get home , or when' he said, as it was apparent already that his relief was marooned at home.
Two or three other people who lived local made it in over the next hour or so, and we spent the rest of the day listening to tales of woe from people who had been badly affected or stranded away from home.

Two stories stick in my head. The first involved a work colleague who left addington near Croydon at 6am to drive to our office in Warwick. He drove around a fallen tree at the end of his road but thought nothing of it. He arrived in Warwick at 08:30 to be greeted by incredulity from his work colleagues that he had arrived there at all. He was totally unaware of what had happened. It took him nine hours to drive home that evening.

The second concerned the cross channel ferry chaos. A friend of mine was on a Calais to Dover ship which was diverted to Folkstone as they could not navigate the harbour entrance at Dover. They arrived outside Folkstone to see another ship already tied to the quay and unloading. There was a queue of ambulances waiting to ferry the injured to hospital as people were flying across the decks with the size of the swell, breaking limbs and knocking themselves out.

Eventually the ship finished unloading, and she was then cut from her moorings and allowed to drift away from the quay, that being the only way they could quickly free up the space for my friends ship to dock. Apparently they could not unload any cars from either ferry as they too had been tossed around in the hold, and blocked the exit ramps. Ouch!

It's a bit breezy here on the Wirral today, but nothing has compared since. 25 years eh!, a lot has happened in that time.