A childhood memoir of life before polio, and immediately after, and my magical childhood adventures in and out of a wheelchair
The Flood of 1953
My grandfather slept right through the storm having had a right skin-full the night before. Grandma slept fitfully, her ears tuned to the storm raging outside and the strange noises that she heard downstairs, never dreaming that the sea had entered the Oyster Bar restaurant, and that tables and chairs were swimming about, crashing into one another and causing the horrendous bumps she heard in the night.
Grandma and Granddad occupied the flat over the restaurant whilst the rest of the family were at our other fish restaurant Joe's Plaice further down, opposite the Clock Tower. What was left of our family, that is; I was in hospital in Rochester with polio. Melvina (Melly) had caught pneumonia as a result of the flood. Kevin, tough little nut that he was, escaped it! Melly, only five, remembers being wrapped in a blanket and carried down the stairs by the ambulance men and seeing the absolute devastation: paving stones were everywhere, tossed like shingle. The ambulance was parked near the Casino (the old Picture Palace) almost next door to The Oyster Bar, and they had to get to her between tides as they feared more of the same, and they were right! The ambulance men carried Melly through the water, my mother and father following behind.
On the night of the flood the wind whistled hard through the keyhole, very hard. It moaned like a ghost and that should have been the warning that all was not well. Water started to seep under the door. So mother started to sweep it back with a broom! But the more she swept the more the sea came in!
Mother and Father carried the tables and chairs to the back of the restaurant where we had a makeshift living room and brought the tinned and packet stuff upstairs. In fact all they could rescue.
At one point Jackie (one of our three cats) was floating about on a table and had to be rescued by my father.
The next day Josie also caught pneumonia and was also carted off to hospital. Mother and father now had three of their children in hospital. One could say "best place for them."
As dawn broke people were being rescued from their homes by boat, especially the elderly. The local fisherman, if their boats hadn't been swept away, joined in the rescue. The local hospital was full and the more serious cases had to be taken to Canterbury Hospital. Local halls were taken into service and hot meals were served to the homeless. The devastation was total. A fridge that was owned by Mr White at the Cardinal Restaurant (next door to us. See photo) was taken up and swept into the back of the Café Tudor at least 500 yards away. Boats were smashed to matchwood and the whole of the seafront was awash with shingle and broken glass. Those boats that survived were Seagull 2nd, owned by my hero Pop Pressley, The Skylark owned by Jess Mount, The King Fisher owned by Johnny Heathcote and the Swordfish owned by Bill Buck who looked like Clarke Gable on a bad day. All the boats were damaged in some way but on the whole they came through the storm relatively unscathed.
Fireman worked day and night to pump out the flooded cellars, including ours. Years later the salt still came through the brickwork in our cellar where we stored the potatoes for the chips that we sold by the ton.
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