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!

Good thing you weren't camping at Selsey 😁

In technical terms it is a cyclone as low pressure is cyclone and high pressure is anticyclone. So a cyclonic weather system means low pressure.

Extra tropical just means it's outside of the tropical zone where most extreme cyclonic events happen.

Tropical storms are extreme low pressure weather systems. Just that tropical storms in the Atlantic are called hurricanes and cyclones are the name in the Indian Ocean.

I'm happy to be corrected as I've pretty much reached the limit of my storm knowledge here.

I woke up the morning after to the sound of a reporter on the R4 Today programme excitedly claiming that there were branches "cavorting" along the motorway. It was a lovely image in my still-sleepy brain.

I was 8 and remember the school phoning all parents to come and collect their kids then my Mum turning up and we were trying to walk home but getting blown all over the place! There was a girl of about the same age holding onto railings by herself so my mum asked if she needed help and she said she was ok and just waiting for her Mum who had gone into the shop!! That night was the one it was really bad but I slept through it!

@WestwardHo1 yes. I know it wasn't as bad up here in the North West
Still scary though.

I was 8 and we were in a small village on the East Kent coast. Our old farmhouse seemed to sway like a ship in the waves. Our neighbours had to move out for months as part of their house back wall collapsed.

Our village was completely cut off as every road out was blocked by fallen trees, a great fun day playing on empty roads for us kids.

We have no electricity for two weeks (doable for us as we had an aga for cooking and hot water and a wood burning stove in the living, others in the village were not so lucky esepcially as the village is no on mains gas.) We were very excited when they sent electrical engineers all the way from Scotland to fix our downed power lines.

In this day and age of connectivity it seems impossible to comprend we had no landline for a month. A month!

I remember my mum being worried what would happen if my brother (who got the bus 8 miles to town for school) missed his bus - there were only two a day!

As a kid it was all a big adventure. Less fun for the adults I suppose.

I slept through the whole thing, didn't know anything had happened until the next morning. I was sleeping in a back bedroom and didn't hear a thing. Couldn't go to college the next day as no buses were running due to there being so many trees down.

I was living on the west coast of Wales at the time. We just had the normal sort of blowy day. Though we were in a bay surrounded by mountains so I suspect we were sheltered by them.

I was four, in my first term at primary school. I remember not being able to go to school as there were trees all over the road (south London) and the overturned trees were my favourite feature of our local park for the rest of my childhood- great for climbing on! I have a picture I drew of them in my school book. Also the windows blew out in a block of flats near us - I remember being told that the people woke up to a cold draught blowing on their toes, but I imagine it was a bit more terrifying than that!

I was 17 and in Kent. I remember being really annoyed when my DM woke up my DSis and I to let us know there was a 'strong wind'. Went back to sleep and woke the next morning to a tree having fallen straight through the next door neighbour's house. We had huge sycamore's lined up opposite our house and were flipping lucky that they hadn't taken out our house too (which apparently my DM had been terrified of). The only bonus side was that school was cancelled and I took my driving test a week later and only 1 route was open in the area, so I knew exactly where I was going.

I lived at home at the time (North London). Our old Georgian house with lead light windows was terrifying that night. The noise was horrific. We were just waiting for them to blow in because you could see how violently they were rattling. We had a huge woodland bordering our garden and about five or six trees fell which caused a lot of damage. An old oak fell across our road and blocked everybody in. You couldn't get out at all. Everything ground to a complete halt. It was awful and I'll never forget it!

I'm amazed anybody slept through it but it's clear from this thread that many did! My family were up all night, that was largely window noise though. No way you could sleep through that 😬

I was at primary school at the time and all I remember is that the school was shut! We lived very close to where the worst of the damage was, but I slept through the whole thing. I just remember waking up in the morning and being confused that my Dad was still home, then he told me I didn't have to go to school today.

I was in year 5 and the roof blew off of our class room and we all had to stand in a line holding hands whilst we ran to the main building. Some windows blew out in that building. I remember being really scared about walking home from school and being really surprised that both my parents came to pick me up (my dad should have been at work) and that they’d thought to collect me!!

We lost a ridge tile of our roof.... I say 'lost' it was actually balancing precariously over our front door.

Other than that I don't remember much about it other than Michael Fish.

I was little but stayed up all night (probably did at some point sleep) in the living room with my family. We sat with candles burning, listening to the howling wind and eating all the treats out of the ‘Christmas cupboard’ which felt like some kind of sinful madness - the Christmas cupboard always started in about September and we were absolutely forbidden to eat any of the treats. We sat through that storm, wrapped in blankets, eating matchsticks and after eights.

At some point my mum unscrewed a cupboard door off its hinges and proped it against the living room window in case it smashed. I thought that was badass! I was expected to go to school the next day, got up and walked through all the pylons and fallen trees and crap everywhere, only for school to be closed. I ended up going to my Nan’s and had more treats. Result!

I remember being woke up by my dad really early to get dressed as our village had been hit badly and no one could get in or out via the roads because loads of trees had fallen on them. Out buildings, fences were down and 'old Mrs Adams' couldn't get out of her bungalow.

All secondary school children had to be taught at the local primary school/village hall for about two weeks as the buses were destroyed by falling trees.

Myself (I was the only girl) and several other boys were given special permission by the schools to stay off and help clear the trees etc.

I spent those two weeks going round with my dad with his chainsaw and me with an axe, cutting away trees and chopping, piling the wood up outside people's doors so they could burn it on their fires.

My Nan and Auntie's (dinner ladies at the primary school) started making hot food for all the villagers as they had agas and the electric to the whole village had been cut off. Thankfully, the primary school had gas ovens.

The church was opened for anyone to come and sit in and have tea, coffee or hot food - it was right next to the primary school. All the pensioners were brought to the church and on the first day, the younger children had to go door to door to collect blankets and other donations.

By the time the emergency services were able to get through to us, we had everything very much under control and all they had to do was clear some huge trees on the main roads.

Mrs Adams' was rescued and taken to the vicarage to be looked after and was fine.

I can remember a lot of the pensioners telling stories about the war and the children they took in, how they worked the land.

But I also remember how incredibly lucky most of us were as a whole family lost their lives not far from us when a tree crashed through their house. Farmers lost crops and animals. In some cases, it took years for people to recover - mentally, physically and financially.

I was in year 4 at primary school. Which they closed because there were very big trees in the grounds they thought would fall on the school. They didn't.
I don't remember any accidents locally but I was in penzance which I doubt got the worst of it.
My strongest memory is that actor from Allo Allo getting hurt.

I was 18 and lived in the East Midlands - don't think we had anything other than a particularly windy day. The worst of it was definitely along the South Coast if I remember correctly. As I was in the height of my most selfish teenage years I felt rather annoyed that there had been all that fuss and we didn't get any excitement at all.

It's wasn't a hurricane but the force of the winds were hurricane strength.

I was 16. I stayed up late that Thursday night as a piece of maths coursework was due the Friday, and just as I'd got to the writing up I realised I coukd take the e investigation much further, and as the swot I was I wanted to keep on working! Anyhow I stayed up until 2ish, finishing up the coursework so I could hand in on time, oy to have school cancelled the following day due to the storm. I was miffed I'd stayed up late as I couldn't hand tge work in, in fact I had another 3 weeks - the week after the storm was work experience week so I wasn't in school, then it was half term, and we went away on holiday for a fortnight so my sweated over coursework was late!

My work experience was with the local paper, and I went out on visits with a reporter to interview people and take photos of local storm damage.

Lived in the Midlands, so not worst affected area by any means. Remember the tall Poplar tree in the garden going back and forth like a windscreen wiper and then, inevietably, it snapped and came down on the shed. Also remember sleeping in Mum's room that night because the window in my room was rattling so much I couldn't sleep.

@Mairzydotes @pastypirate it was the storm in January 1990 that Gorden Kaye (Rene in 'Allo 'Allo), was injured, not the 1987 one, he had life-threatening head injuries. It seemed like years after the 1987, but it was only about 15 months between them.

I don't remember a lot about the 1987 one, except the very loud wind, but I was ill at the time. I

I was a teenager in Surrey. I remember being woken by my Mum in the middle of the night by candlelight because a tree was swaying outside my window. She took me downstairs to the back of the house. Then there was a thunderous crash and a tree fell straight down the middle of my Dad's car, smashing it to bits.

My sister slept through the whole thing :)

I remember being so bored the next day. No TV, no phone, intermittent electricity. I walked over an hour to my best friend's house (dangerous, with hindsight) and there were fallen trees everywhere. Most of the roads were closed. It was mayhem.

i remember the morning after. had to go to work and it took ages to get there (sussex) as so many trees down. work was massively busy. (BT) just had to run in and start work with coats still on, the 999 board was lit up like a christmas tree. even had to put people on hold. which you never did normally.