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!

Out school was closed so I went to the cinema with my friend Nina to see Beverley Hills Cop 2.

The day after we were driving near Colchester Zoo and saw a lynx walking along the embankment of the dual carriageway. Very surreal. Apparently some enclosures at the zoo had been flattened and this cat had just strolled off unnoticed.

I was only 3, but I remember the power cut (exciting/scary for a 3 year old!) and all the trees down the next day.

😱
This is something that really worries me about wars/bombing/natural disasters - letting the hungry animals out of zoos and violent prisoners out of prisons

I.was 13 ,I don't think we stayed off school
But I do have a distinct memory of a man being interviewed on Look North west and him describing how he had been walking down the street when he felt a pain and when he looked up.there we've lamp post lying across his legs in a very broad Liverpool accent.

I was working the night shift on the Labour ward at Queen Charlottes. From time to time we looked out of the window and said "It's a bit windy isn't it?"
Then the lights went out while we were finishing of a Caesarian section. Then the emergency lights came on but then the generators blew. So we finished the LSCS by torchlight and did a forceps by torchlight.

In the neonatal unit the nurses had to hand ventilate the babies with ambu bags and wrapped them in foil.

Women ringing up in labour were told to find another hospital. Must have been scary.

In the morning I went to the car park and headed home only to find every other street I wanted to go down was blocked by fallen trees.

I hate us all being so dependent on electricity/computers etc so we're screwed when it all goes down.

@WestwardHo1
Thank you.

We were in a little village in Oxfordshire.

I was speaking to my Aunty earlier and had completely forgotten that my dad used to have a three wheeler van like Del boy in Only Fools and Horses. It had been blown over on its side and my dad and the neighbour just pushed it back.

To be fair, the van did do that a lot, so to me it was a regular occurrence. 🤣🤣🤣

I was 19 and staying over at my boyfriend's flat (who is now my Dh) in SE London. We'd been out in central London the night before and I remember it was so warm we took our coats off walking along at 10pm in October.

The next morning boyfriend was shocked that I'd slept through it all. He's lain awake worrying. I think he tried to get to work and I tried to get up polytechnic and we both gave up. Buses all full, trains cancelled and branches, leaves and debris everywhere.

Even worse than the one in Tokyo where the wind caught one of the wings as we were about to touch down and the plane tilted. Bloke sitting next to me said he'd never heard so many sharp intakes of breath.

I was 7. I remember watching it out of the bay window of our house in Cornwall. My dad used to drive a moped to work and trees had fallen.

I had just started secondary school.

I remember a whole wood nearby totally flattened.

My Dad had had a waggon like this restored and it was in a shed on our farm which collapsed onto the waggon... Thankfully not much damage done. We had two lots of iron furniture in our garden. Some from B and Q and some heavy cast iron. Mum got up in the morning and said the furniture was in the rose bush at the bottom of the garden
Dad said oh its only the cheap stuff. Mum said it was the heavy stuff. That had Dad out of bed. When our electricity was reconnected they did something wrong and the heating element was red hot in the airing cupboard!!

I was born! My mum has told me of how the hospital was running on a generator, my shoulder got stuck and it was hard getting a doctor who was able to get into work! I wish I knew/remembered more as she passed away 2 years ago but I always love hearing about the storm. It's something my mum and I have, just us two.

Just remembered that we watched the news (Breakfasttime?) with Ian McCaskill the weatherman wearing his shirt and no jacket or tie looking like he'd been up all night

Hurricane Force by George Hill is a good account, if you can get hold of it (published in 1988).

I lived in a basement flat and hear nothing until I went to leave for work! It was a huge event!

I was born in the middle of it!

I was 7 and in SE London and remember the noice the wind made over the top of the chimney all night, lay still as anything and was petrified the chimney would fall onto me in bed! Remember going to Kent and the woods were flattened!

I has gone to visit a friend who lived in a holiday let on the edge of Dartmoor. I didn't sleep a wink because of the noise of the wind, the narrow bunk and our other friends snoring !

We didn’t hear a thing - until waking to the sound of chainsaws cutting up big fallen trees on the nearby main road.

We have a Royal Park not far away, and it was closed for quite a while because of ‘dangerous trees’.

Best, I remember our milkman, who turned up as usual, saying, ‘I don’t know - a little bit of wind and the whole country goes to rack and ruin!’ 😂

And after we got married we had to drive down to Gatwick to go on our honeymoon the following morning so DH decided he wouldn't drink and we would set off at 2am after the evening do so we wouldn't risk missing our flight.

Took us a long time to get there with all the trees still down - loads of detours etc and of course, when we got to Gatwick none of the planes were where they should be so we had a long wait and we could have just gone to bed and left the following day 🙄

And then we came back to Black Monday and negative equity on our newly bought cottage 🙄🙄

Was it really a cyclone? I lived in a house surrounded by huge ever green trees. I certainly don't remember being scared at night or my parents worrying at all, I would have been about 11.. However I distinctly remember so many trees had come down in our garden and across the road and locally in woods so many trees had come down.

I was on holiday in Britanny and due to catch the ferry back to the UK the following morning - only there was no ferry as it had only made it as far as Cherbourg due to the storm. The whole boat load of passengers had to drive to Cherbourg (3 hr drive) to pick up the boat there. This was obviously pre Sat Nav or Internet days. We only had a map of Brittany not Normandy.

It was only when we got back the UK that we realised the extent of the storm. We drove 40 miles before we found a petrol station that had power!

I was training it to the other side of the county to look at universities. I ended up staying in a b&b for a couple of nights and burning through cash. Fortunately I was staying with a friend of my mum’s a bit later in the trip who subbed me…

I remember that dreadful time as if it was Yesterday. I was in Kenya where the brunt of the storm hit. My friend Bernard was a tough nut but even he couldn't handle it. I'll never forget the sight of him being physically blown away by the wind. Haven't seen him since. RIP Bernard x