The "Great Storm" of 1987

[The Moan Ranger]

What are your recollections of it?

I woke up not having heard a thing - had a shower, dressed and went outside...ah! Why is there a tree on my trusty Austin 1300? Come to that, why is there a tree on the neighbour's Ford Cortina 2000E...

Luckily, the phone lines were OK, so I phoned the office (which was in Thornton Heath) and managed to get through to the one person who had made it in. I told the situation and they said not to bother trying to get in - I didn't need to be told twice!

I rang a friend who lives down the road and he also couldn't get to work as no trains were running to London. Nothing else for it then, off I marched to his house and after a bit of late breakfast, from there to the Robin Hood in Sutton. Four hours later, suitably imbibed, we wobbled off for a tour of the devastation around Sutton and popped into my brothers office - a few cups of coffee and then all of us went back to the Robin for round two.

Nursing a gold-medal hangover the next day, we set about removing the tree from my car and luckily the damage was only superficial - lots of scraches and a few dents.

The roads in the area weren't cleared for days though - so I couldn't get to work and thus I had to repeat the Robin Hood trips until they were. 

[Snoopy]

Actually lived in Luton at the time .... worked in Potters Bar. Managed to get into work but the devastation had to be seen to be believed. We (Mrs S and I) worked together and used to drive in (leaving home at 5am for a 6am start) so we saw the tail end of the storm as it swept across Hertfordshire. I felt a little vulnerable in a mini as trees and branches etc came down all round us. Usually we got in at about 5.30 which gave time for a coffee and brekky as we took over the shift from the night crew but that morning I only just got there in time for six.
We worked for a security company and the chaos that reigned across North London as we tried to get the 600 night guards off duty from over 250 locations and their replacements in was a trial.

[Bar Wench]

We were in Spain and spent most of the next day trying to discover whether the over 100 year old oak trees on the England property had smashed it down.

[Uncle Mort]

I was living in Laindon at the time, finding no train service in to Fenchurch Street I phone my boss to say that due to the storm last night I was having trouble getting in to the office. His answer was “storm, what storm?” having slept through the entire thing.

I cadged a lift off a neighbour to Upminster where there was some Underground trains running. The A127 was strewn with branches and foliage, no complete trees fortunately. Also not many other cars.

Hardly anyone else turned up at the office – bloody wimps.

[Barman]

I lived in Windsor at the time…

Got up at six, drove all the way to Hyde Park Corner dodging fallen trees, advertising hoardings and broken cars to find that I was the only one that bothered.