Michael Fish Storm

Officially known as The Great Storm of 1987 and what made the BBC Weather presenter famous. The night before he had said:

"Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way... well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't!".

There was!

The evening before I had been couped up in a tall Coventry city centre hotel listening to a former Liverpool FC and England football star, Emlyn Hughes  giving an after dinner speech at a company conference. Maybe it was the drink but I certainly didn't hear anything untoward that night.

Woke up very early today as I had to practice my speech to a couple of hundred colleagues. So while talking to the hotel bedroom mirror, I had the BBC news TV switched on mute. At some point something must have caught my eye on the TV. The presenter was clearly not changing his position and only one camera angle and with no picture footage of the latest news.

Then turned on the sound and heard about the chaos raging in southern Britain. The BBC had been forced in to a wartime like cellar with emergency generators. Clearly in the Midlands it had been less severe as the hotel had power.

It was a Friday, the conference went on, I did my speech but thankfully nobody was listening. Everyone wanted to get back home. Remember we didn't generally have mobiles and the built in car phone .didn't help as hardly anyone had them, the transmitters were almost certainly down and all landlines were broken.

We all then headed off in all directions. At first sight no visible damage as one hit the MI and turned south towards London until suddenly one saw orange and white forests of shrubs by the side of the motorway - all the roadwork safety cones. had been blown away.

Around London's still very new M25 and then off at the A3 junction towards Guildford where the damage became more apparent. Still no serious problems on the road but turning off at Milford and taking the road to Chiddingfold, it got quite alarming. There I decided to take a really back road that went past Shillinglee Park estate which is where the photo of my car was taken after driving under the tree.

Got home to family and no electricity, no heating .......