25 years since The Great Storm of 1987

[GloriaSmud]

Was reminded of this by a post on met-monkey but this weekend, it's 25 years since the storm.
Here in the Midlands, I remember going to school (think it was a Friday morning) and thought it was just a bit wet and windy. I had no idea what had happened in the south of the country though. My grandparents who lived in Lewes near Brighton, slept through it all but said they woke up to find a couple of ridge tiles had gone through their conservatory roof. One had landed on a terracotta plant pot, splitting it exactly in half but leaving the plant totally unharmed!

Anyone else with other memories?

I was only 2 we lived out in the country and got really battered by it but apparently I slept the whole way through it, since becoming a mum though I don't sleep through DH coughing.

I slept through it but woke early morning to find my mum holding a brokenpane of glass in my bedroom window til dad could board it up. I think a roof tile must have hit it.

My granny was without power so she came to ours for the day. Oh yes, and we went to see this as it was just a short walk away.

I also slept through it and woke to find my alarm hadn't gone off, the electrics weren't working, the buses were up the spout and there was a huge tree blocking the way to work!

I remember walking to school (north hampshire) and walking past blown down trees, the roots/mud was so high to me ( I was 6 and these were big trees)

I'd have been 11 and yet I can't recall (also a Midlander)

though was there something about Oak trees falling down? Vauge memory from somewhere about Oak tree possibly in Seven Oaks whch could be unrelated to the storm

I was in my first year of uni in London. I was in a hall of residence, big block and tucked in low and in an inside corner room so slept through the storm.

Going into uni on the bus from Camden - thought it was strange that there were so many branches and leaves around but didn't give it much thought - dashed for the bus and was busy chatting to friends.

Getting close to uni, the bus turned onto Euston Road from Hampstead Road - there were a line of trees on the pavement going around the corner, usually all standing up and equally spaced. That morning - the first one was sloping a bit. The next one was sloping a bit more. And so on, each tree sloping further on as you went around the (big) corner - until you got to the last one and and it was completely horizontal.

It looked really amazing - like somebody had done some amazing street art - except it was real trees that had been hurt and so it wasn't IYSWIM. It was before the days of mobile phones and compact cameras - I would have loved a picture of it, it was amazing to think that nature had pushed these trees down in such an orderly fashion.

I also remember watching the news reports (in the tv room in those days - didn't have a tv in my room at uni) and yes - Seven Oaks had trees blown down - think it was 6 of the 7 that were blown down.

A few years later I ended up with a fab bonkers book from the second hand bookmarket at ULU that was all about how the great storm had been caused by witchcraft . It was one of those things that was just sooooo bad it was good, outrageous theory, badly written and the source of a lot of entertainment. I still have it now, somewhere in the depths of my bookcases and boxes of books! (more for sentimental reasons I hasten to add than because it was such a literary work of brilliance - just brings back happy memories of that time of my life).
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I do remember knowing someone at uni who had a tree through his window thanks to the storm blowing it down. I think (although am a little rusty now) that he wasn't in his room that night as he was at his girlfriend's (or was it the other way round?) Anyhow, that was about the most exciting thing that actually happened to someone I knew as a result of the storm.

the plastic window and the board over the fire place at my first lodgings were rattling away. then seeing the news. all those trees fallen down.

I remember the noise of the wind howling all night it was awful. I worked at a stately home and we couldn't get in as there were huge trees all over the road, really upset me as I love trees so much.

My brother was in Australia at the time and I spoke to him on the phone the following day telling him all about it. Gawd how can that be 25 years ago?????

I remember it well.....was in London, dumped my first boyfriend in Macdonalds for being too boring ( I was 16....) Then got the bus home, thinking it was wobbling quite a lot. Woke in the night to the winds and seeing fences and stuff flying about, then the leccy went out and I woke my mum.
The amount of trees that came down was astonishing. As was the number of neighbours who we'd never spoken to, wanting a shot of our gas cooker.

A day or two later got the bus from Victoria to Dundee and it was mad seeing the destruction peter out the further north we got.

Was living in Ealing, West London. Slept through it all. Got to Ealing Broadway Station to get tube into work and realised there was a problem with the tube. Got on a very packed tube which went nowhere. Told to get off. Hung around wondering what to do. Told to get back on tube and off it went.

Was about 20 mins late for work. First secretary in on our floor and ended up working for every partner on the floor as nobody else around. Regretted not going home! Also did some urgent typing for a guy I didn't know very well who is now my DH! (Unrelated really - it was a drunken night a few months later that led to that!)

I'd just started work in my first "proper" job and was desperate to get to the office, took me two hours to find a way past the fallen trees (north hampshire), when I finally arrived they looked at me as if I were mad, and told me I should just have walked to the local branch and worked there for the day
Then it took me 2 hours to get home again.