Kmflett's Blog

Tony Benn on the October 1987 storm: ‘it was like a day that didn’t exist’

Tony Benn’s diary for 16th October 1987 suggests by omission one of the great things about the storm of 15th October 1987 compared to how such matters go on now.

Weather warnings there may have been from the Met but there were no websites to carry them and no social media to  repeat them. Unless you had been watching the TV weather on the evening of 15th October (when Michael Fish suggested that a hurricane was not on the way- he was technically right, it was a storm) you might well not have known much until the morning.

The impact on North London was relatively limited, but there was little transport in the morning. Certainly I couldn’t get to work, and in the day before e-mail and mobiles, getting to work meant physically attending a central London office.

I’m pleased to say however that by the afternoon matters had improved enough for my late father and myself to be able to get a bus to the Pigs Ear Beer Festival which back then ran at its original autumn time and in the first venue, Old Ford Hall, Bethnal Green

In the middle of the night we had the worst storm since 1703, with the wind speed in London reaching 94 mph. Trees were torn up all over the place. In Kew Gardens it will take 200 years for the trees that were lost to be replaced to maturity. The weather men never predicted it, though it was actually a hurricane. There are trees lying all over the streets. Caroline has been staying at Stansgate, where there was a power cut. Enormous damage has been done. The whole thing was unreal; it was like a day that didn’t exist, one of those days that has a special character of its own.

Tony Benn Diary

Friday 16th October 1987