Memories of the Great Storm of 1987

[January24]

Do you remember it? Where were you?

I always referred to it as a hurricane but apparently it was actually a cyclone.

I was a young teacher in London in a shared house and I thought it was the end of the world! We got a week off from it though. I remember ringing my parents in Wales the day after to say I was fine and not to worry and they laughed as they hadn’t even had a storm where they were!

I'm sure it was referred to as a hurricane at the time. I seem to remember electric being cut off for a week or so. And no school!

No electric for about a 5 days. We went to a local pub that was serving food by candlelight which was a great childhood memory.

I was 19 and had recently met my now DH. For some reason he had driven my car back to his house and it was outside in the road. His mum woke him up in the early hours asking him to move it as a nearby tree was looking precarious. He thought she was making a fuss but she persisted and he eventually moved it .... 20 minutes later the tree fell where the car had been.

I remember walking to work and seeing loads of trees down. Got to the office and there was no electricity and we were sent home.

I knew nothing about it until I left for work at usual time and the tubes were all delayed. Stood around waiting a bit and then a train arrived and I got into work around normal time. I was working for a large accountancy practice and ended up being the only secretary in on my floor so was kept busy!

Definitely a hurricane, defined by wind speed. Cyclone was the weather pattern that caused it. I was leading a birdwatching holiday on the northeast coast , where it was just very windy, and missed it. I was usually based in Kent!

I was living in central London at the time and slept through the whole thing!

My (electric) alarm clock didn't go off so I was woken by my boss ringing me early in the morning to tell me to stay home. I was really confused until I saw the news footage...

I was five and living in East Sussex at the time, which was one of the worst-affected areas. I can remember coming into my parents’ bed in the night because I was scared, and the wall behind the bed literally shaking. Our greenhouse was flattened and a biggish tree in our garden blew down. We had no power for about a week, but we were better off than our neighbours as we had a Rayburn stove (a bit like an Aga). People would come to our house to heat up water!

I got married the day after - remember lying in bed listening to the storm and hoping it would stop by the morning 😳

My best friend from London had all sorts of problems driving north due to fallen trees etc. walked into the church and straight down the aisle to give the reading. I couldn't understand why she sounded so nervous as she was training to be a vicar.

Only found out afterwards of the crazy journey and the stress she was under trying to get there in time. Just abandoned her car outside the church!

Pregnant with my first, I had gone to stay with my mum in Blackheath, London as we had gone to choose the pram the previous day.

We were aware of how noisy the wind had been overnight etc, but not the extent of the damage.

I was going to go to work, near Buckingham Palace, by bus, from mum's and then home (Northamptonshire) after work.

I'd waited ages without seeing a bus until someone said there were no buses running. Went to Blackheath station to be told no trains were running either.

All comms were out (landlines only back then) and it was the weirdest feeling to be in one of the busiest cities in the world and yet so isolated

I missed the storm but the next day drove back to London and remember seeing double deckers on their side, trees pulled out of the pavement, and half the trees down in my local park.

I was in Surrey. It was terrifying. My dad slept through it.

We got up at dawn to find several trees down around us. My car was completely under a huge cedar tree. A neighbour chain sawed it free, and it was completely undamaged! Another neighbour, had a branch go through his car window and into the seat! It was carnage around us. So many trees down.

I was only a baby so can't actually remember it...

But we lost our apple tree. I only know we had an apple tree as there is a photo on my parents wall of my toddler brother cuddling baby me underneath it (photos obviously being a lot more sparing in those days)

I was born a year later but that storm was the reason we got our cat. My parents were on holiday and the barn next to their holiday cottage collapsed during the storm. The next morning they discovered that a mum and her kittens had been in there. Sadly only one kitten survived but he became our gorgeous funny boy who put up with toddler me picking him up endlessly. Miss him so much.

Business trip to Jersey (I was working for an American bank). I was due to leave on the Friday and on Thursday a few of us went out to dinner. When we left the restaurant it was very windy and oddly warm for October, but we thought nothing of it. I woke up in the night to a loud crash, thought that some tiles had come off the hotel roof in the wind and went back to sleep (I grew up in North Devon so high winds were a bit so what). I slept a bit late and was packing so didn't switch on the news, and came down to breakfast to some businessmen berating the receptionist because they couldn't get to the airport. When I left after breakfast the roads in both directions were blocked with fallen trees (the crash I heard turned out to be a tree falling across some cars).

Managed to get into work with another woman working at the same place - crawling through trees and climbing over things. In retrospect I can't believe how stupid that was - we could easily have been crushed by falling branches but we told ourselves we were managers, we had to be in. What had been during the week a 15 minute walk took us about 2 hours with a breakfast stop halfway. The harbour was full of sunken boats and debris.

And I had to stay an extra night because obvs, no flights. But mostly, I slept through the worst of it. Jersey and Guernsey took the brunt of the winds.

I was a young mum of twins and I remember lying in bed listening to the storm rage. DH snored all the way through it and the twins remained fast asleep. An enduring memory is hearing our roof tiles one by one slide off the roof and smash onto the road below. It was an unforgettable experience. I must admit, last night's storm took me back to that time but this time I didn't lose any roof tiles. I hope everyone else in the UK is ok too.

Absolutely a hurricane!

I remember sitting on my parents’ bed around 4am & them saying that of course we’d be going to school….

The power was off for the next week. God knows how Mum managed with food, I can’t remember, but I do remember trying to read by a bike lamp.

I went to a fairly posh private primary school and in our next school newsletter after the storm, they printed some quotes from some of the children about the storm. One girl described how her father's yacht was left damaged...my mum found this hilariously privileged

I remember it very well. I lived in a house very close to a chicken farm building with my newborn and a part of the chicken shed roof flew off and smashed against our house breaking a window. 2 trees fell down at the end of the farm track and I had to wait for a tractor to remove them before I could leave home. I went to stay with my Mum in town as I didn't feel safe there.

I was a small child. I remember an end of terrace house on the way to school was badly damaged. Lost its roof and gable end.

Also remember the actor who played Rene in Allo Allo was injured during the storm .

I went to school the next day but hardly anyone else did. The teacher said:
"Good morning boys and girls...girls and girls....girls and boy!"

I wasn't very old but I do remember some tiles had come off the roof onto the driveway and smashed onto my parent's car.

I was 12 and we used to walk through woods behind our houses to school. We still did that which, in hindsight was probably not the most sensible idea! I remember the three of us climbing over a huge fallen down tree in skirts. There were lots of fallen down trees in those woods, but I don't remember missing any school or power being out. This was in the south of England.

I lived opposite Abbey Woods in London at the time and I remember seeing all the tress that had fallen. My aunt had a caravan in Rye that got blown out to sea!

It was a non-event in Bristol, where I was at the time (much worse storm in winter 1990) but DH, who was on the south coast at the time, recalls being blown flat on his back crossing the school playground, which always makes the dc laugh.

I was seven, living in the Netherlands . I remember my father couldn’t make it home from work, because some bridges and roads were closed off. He phoned us after midnight that he arrived at the house of a colleague after being stranded for hours. My mum was worried sick.