pslewis

Good grief!!!

20 years ago and seems like just a couple!!

Just seen the cars - Vauxhall Vivas and Mark2 Escorts!!

The oldest cars I see on a daily basis now, are P Reg.!

dpb

p is ten years ago !

Abdabz

I remember trying to play football in it on the "all weather pitch" at my senior school...
It was pure comedy... These days they wouldnt even let children out to play in hurricanes which is what is fundamentally wrong with society today...

pslewis

I thought it was 11??

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

I'd just started working in woodland management when the storm happened and most of my colleagues were rubbing their hands in glee as they fired up their chainsaws thinking of all the cash they were going to earn. I hadn't yet got my chainsaw operators certificate so was really annoyed and felt very left out

Nicci

I feels like a lifetime ago to me. 13 years old and living in southern Essex.

I remember looking out of my bedroom window with my parents and all the lights going out (power cut). My sister slept through the whole thing.
I was surprised at how some of the trees could bend (we still lost a few).

Walking down my street to see a tree in my friends bedroom window was a scare (he was below it and ok).

No school for the next few days was great, along with exploring the new scenery.

Nicci

That was probably the high winds that occured two years later during the day (the Gales of 20 years ago were at night).

(if I remember correctly)

Chip

Were you a lumberjack Sal ?


Chip

dpb

leave it - shes allright ...!

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

A lumberjack in training, yes

Anyway I would watch it if I were you as I did get my operators certificate in the end. Think Texas Chainsaw Massacre

blockmonke@fsmail.net

A woman on the end of a chainsaw

Abdabz

I'm sure we were out in both. It's possible but unlikely that in the preceding afternoon it was tranquil or by the following morning, serenity had resumed as if nothing had happened
I am up north remember, it's higher up...
The winds of two years later (when I would have been 15) were indeed also windy, but I would think that by then the worst part of that gale was being unable to light my cig or get a proper whiff off my tipex before going into class

Gutmann pug

Was that the great storm or the big winds?

Leslie

I was stuck in traffic on the Walton on Thames bridge over the river on that day in an old Beemer 7 series and it was shifted sideways by almost a foot while it was stationary!

Les

Suresh

I was driving back to Kent from a club in Tottenham that night. It was an experience I'd prefer not to repeat though - with gravel, traffic cones and bits of trees flying everywhere.

Nicci

A programme about this is on ITV now.

Jamie

Spooks is better bbc1

Nicci

Nah, Endurance on Motors TV is better.

Sorry for the heads up on a programme that looks like it is aimed at the 50+.

abbott

i was 7 and was on holiday at my nanas down in chessington , i woke up in the middle of the night and told my mum n dad that i saw a shed flying past the window and they told me not to be so silly and go back to bed , well did they get a shock in the morning !!! i can rememeber we went to a giant green house kinda thing the next day is it Q garden or something ? anyways the place was devastated its one of my earliest memories ...

Jamie

kew gardens?

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

That was the year that Sevenoaks became Oak.

Iwan

I was on a Scout summer camp in Wales. Our campsite got destroyed and washed away, and we were evacuated to a church hall where we stayed for a few hours helping to bail out nearby houses which were flooding as a river burst its banks, then we were evacuated again to a pub car park when the church hall flooded.

I remember swimming down a fast flowing main road and the water was up to my neck, pretty exciting at the time (I was 12) but looking back now it seems I was very lucky not to be dead.

The pub eventually flooded and we ended up in a community hall up on a hill somewhere. I had just the clothes I was wearing which were soaked, and some local folks donated blankets, sleeping bags etc for us. It was all pretty exciting.

I'll never forgot looking at where the road through our campsite used to be, and seeing a fast flowing river with entire trees floating down it at quite a speed, some up to 0.5m thick trunks.

Paul3446

Did anyone else find the documentary about this completely boring?

I finally turned off when they were talking about rescuing someone's budgie, but using the latest CGI technology managed to show a picture of what looked like an owl?

SiPie

Yup...

Namby pamby southern poofters storm .... pah

Buckwheat

How weird was that bloke who called his windmill Jill?

David Lock

What day/night of the week was it??? Can't find that out anywhere.

I lived just off Clapham Common then (no I'm not) and slept through. Walked across the Common in the morning and it was eerily quiet. Just about 50% of the trees were down.

The Zohan

Yes, but have the shopping trolleys you collect changed much in 20 years, have their been any significant developments in thier form or function you would wish to share with us Pete?

Matteeboy

Remember a tree falling and JUST missing my Dad's new 928S - he was very relieved!
Had a day off school too (lived nr Guildford in Surrey at the time).
Saw Michael Fish on that program last night - think we can safely say he's a little bit messed up by it all!