Dear LPG,

In the life times of today’s pensioners there are those days that we will never forget if we are old enough to have been there; days like May 8 1945, the one when we learned that the Second World War was officially over in Europe, or 30th July 1966 when England won the World Cup.   I am talking about the days when you can remember exactly what you were doing when you heard the news.  

There is news that you hear but then again there is news that you are part of, and if you were in Lewisham, you will not find it difficult to cast your mind back to what you were up to this day in 1987; I am talking about the day after the great storm.

I remember flooding my car engine while driving and not getting to work that afternoon, but although we were warned, we never expected anything quite like what actually happened.  It was the one day that I could not phone in to say I could not get to work because the telephone lines all went down too, in fact, it was the day that everything seemed to go down.  Do you remember the state of your local park the day after, or how many trees were blown down in your road?  Did your house or car suffer, and did you lose your electricity, gas and telephone supply on the day?

It had everything; the element of surprise, a devastating effect on south east England, it claimed 18 English lives and countless trees but the one thing that I could not find was its official name. 

I learned, courtesy of Google, about how they usually name such storms but apparently the named ones originate in the USA and travel over the Atlantic Ocean to us.  Because this one was whipped up this side of that watery expanse the only name it appears to have is ‘Great’, but whatever you call it, I think most of us will remember.

This is an anniversary that I am sure we all have our own private memories of.

BJ, Ladywell

BJ shared some information found on the subject…

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