By 1987 we were able to afford to have the roof of our house felted, which involved lifting all the heavy 11" clay tiles, removing the mortar between them, laying felt, and replacing the tiles. The job was done by one rather old man and he had just removed most of the tiles and stacked them in rather precarious-looking piles on the roof when....
....the southeast of England was hit by the infamous Great Storm of the night of 15th October, the one that weather forecaster Michael Fish said wouldn't happen. We lay in bed listening to objects sliding off the roof and had visions of all our tiles destroyed but what we heard were the bits of mortar on the move - not one tile was lost.
The wind was still gusting in the morning when we rose to survey the wreckage but nothing deterred Gill from....
....the day's normal routines.
The worst damage was to the local trees. Many came down all over Maldon, several in the grounds of The Plume, which meant the school was closed for three days while the wreckage was removed. Roofs, including that of my parents' house, lost slates and tiles, and many fence panels were destroyed - one is visible missing beyond Gill in this photograph.
No comments:
Post a Comment