Michael Fish

I was 11 when The Great Storm of 1953 featured in https://derrickjknight.com/2022/01/28/a-knights-tale-96-kings-lynn/ struck.

Memorable as that was, rather closer to home was the ‘great storm’ of 1987. Jessica, Sam, Louisa and I were then living in Furzedown in the London Borough of Wandsworth. I must have been the only person in Southern England who slept through the whole phenomenon. Our neighbour across the road enjoyed no such luxury. He was having a new roof put on, and spent the whole night hanging on to the ropes and stays which were keeping the tarpaulin covers over his otherwise unprotected upper storey.

I always ran to work in Queens Park in those days. This was a nine mile journey which I covered daily carrying a back pack containing my clothes and other necessities for the day. I was employed in the former Paddington Town Hall where there was a shower room which had been installed for the council members. I would take a shower, get dressed, go to a greasy spoon for a fry-up, and start the day sometime before 9 a.m. On this particular day, completely oblivious of the night’s destruction, I set off as usual. I vaguely wondered why a tree I hadn’t noticed before had been felled on Tooting Bec Common, and why there seemed to be rather more traffic jams than usual. Since much of my journey followed treeless routes or public parks I had no idea that the tree I had seen was not the only arboreal casualty. Many others were blocking main roads into London. When I arrived at my building in Harrow Road, I followed my usual routine and then began to wonder why no-one else had arrived. Had I gone by car I may have learned the news on the radio. On the other hand, I too would not have arrived on time.

This storm changed the landscape of Southern England. 70% of the trees in the wooded valley in which Chartwell is set were lost. Those you see today are in fact their replacements. Sevenoaks in Kent is no longer appropriately named.

It is a measure of the vast technological benefits satellites have given meteorological predictions that the paths of such storms can be tracked on our TV screens today. Back in 1987, with no such aids, poor Michael Fish, the TV weatherman – as if his name were not enough – earned decades of jokes by dismissing reports that a hurricane was on its way.

With my father on his deathbed in Hampshire, Jessica, Sam, Louisa, and I

moved to Lindum House in Newark, Nottinghamshire. I was to have one more visit before Dad died on Christmas Day. He was buried at Catherington, near Horndene and it was 34 more years before Mum’s body rejoined him.

I’m having a bit of fun looking back over the last eighteen months of blogging, and adding where appropriate some older photographs to the posts. Today I went back thirty years in my archives add added three to ‘Reminiscing With Don’ of last August.

Albeit extremely blustery, it was a beautiful autumn day as we set out on a journey the Met Office had warned everyone against. Leaves scampered across the sky like swifts riding thermals. Indeed, as we drove to Mat and Tess’s we saw a number of birds seemingly doing just that. When reading BBC News Jackie came across advice to ‘keep away from trees’. She thought that given where we live that might be rather difficult. Michael Fish was interviewed yesterday predicting that the current gales would not be as devastating as those of 1987. Someone in charge was having a laugh. Mr. Fish, you see, is probably the best, indeed, for most people the only, known weather announcer of all time. He famously broadcast a reassurance, in 1987, that the rumoured storm would not happen. It did. So if anything was likely to confirm fears of tonight’s tempest it would be putting Michael Fish on air to refute it.

Trees were already bending beside the A27, their foliage tapping on our windscreen seeking shelter within. As the leaves rushed towards us they reminded me of the one scene in the 3D version of James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ that made me flinch. Boulders came flying out of the screen straight at the audience’s heads.

We were not to be deterred from our trip which was a belated birthday celebration for our daughter in law. Jackie took a delicious apple and apricot crumble to follow Tess’s superb roast pork; roast potatoes, carrots, and parsnips; Dauphinoise potatoes; leek and cabbage compote; apple sauce; and dark red wine gravy. Red wines by Tess and me and various beers by Jackie and Matthew were consumed. Tess liked the presents we had bought yesterday.

After the meal we had coffee in The Village Shop so that we could see the new counter layout. Every time we go the establishment seems even more inviting and attractive than the last.

The clocks were turned back an hour at two o’clock this morning, the end of British Summer Time. This meant that it was already dark at 6 pm. when we set off back home. Dark, wet, and windy. At times the windscreen wipers could barely cope with the water that was thrown at it. Rain hammered down directly into it, splashed up on impact with the roads, and formed a fine spray spinning from the wheels of other cars. I don’t know how Jackie managed in the driving seat, but I found the wipers mesmerising as I seemed to be peering through a Jackson Pollock painting on glass. The halo effect around traffic lights and car headlamps and taillights, coupled with the sparkling bits of twig cracking on the car gave the impression that November 5th was already upon us.

In fairness to Michael Fish, the gales, as I write have not reached the force of that October night 26 years ago.

Tag: Michael Fish

A Knight’s Tale (99: 1987, Part Two)