Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Topic started by: Wowbagger on 16 October, 2017, 09:49:44 am
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It was indeed 30 years ago today that we woke up to such devastation. Frightening stuff.
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I remember it well..... God, I am starting to sound like an old fart...
I was living in Forest Gate back then in a flat with a old, large tree outside. This creaked and groaned all night keeping me awake. So much so, I got up at 5am and headed to work. Walking to the main road to catch the bus was "fun" as stuff including bins were flying around in the wind.
Getting the 25 into the City was also very time consuming as the road was partly blocked in a number of places including near Bow and further down the Mile End Road (just beyond the Uni) where an advertising board had been blown down. If I remember correctly, I took nearly two hours to do what is around an 8 mile journey.
Then, when arriving at work where 7 000 people were expected, I was one of only 200 people who made it in/ could be bothered to try. Did we get a thank you for turning up or were we sent home early...... did we heck.
Thankfully, there was no damage to my property but I did see some houses with tiles missing and that type of thing. Lets hope today isn't as bad: stay safe you all.
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The damage came from an interesting sequence of events. There had been a prolonged period of wet and mild weather in the South East. We lived in Harefield, near Uxbridge at the time, and we had no telephone, as the junction boxes were flooded.
The result was that trees were still in full leaf, and the sodden ground provided less support for the roots. We were away, instructing at a hedgelaying training course, followed by the national competition in Yorkshire. There were a lot of tree surgeons from the worst-hit areas of Kent and Sussex there, who lost out on work. We got home to find no electricity, and a Mulberry tree on our roof.
I was at college at Farnborough, doing a postgraduate course in Conservation Management, but I still managed to fit in some clearance work. A lot of that was extremely dangerous, especially large Beech, which had root-plated. I'd be interested to see the post-storm chainsaw accident lists.
We were at a reunion for a group which bought a wood in memory of a friend in early 1987 this weekend. That wood has an interesting structure now. It's on the Wealden clay near Tunbridge Wells, and the largest trees are Ash, with large areas of even-aged Birch and Alder, there's a notable absence of Oak and Beech, with some large Cherry still present.
The group was from the London Conservation Volunteers, who did weekend work parties. They had their heyday when Dutch Elm Disease was at its height, as there was a tremendous amount of work to be done. DED was a contributory factor in the 1987 damage, as it had left holes in the tree canopy, which promoted windblow.
This weekend I felled my first victims of Ash Dieback, so the cycle may repeat itself. I'm concerned that the response is a bit slow. Standing dead trees are hard to fell, as you can't influence the direction of fall. That caused deaths in the 70s and 80s with Elm. I foresee similar problems with Ash.
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Some slates fell off the roof, the conifers came down, I spent the night with my next door neighbour as she was frightened as we had no electric.
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I spent most of it in a ditch hiding from Marines.
Happy days!
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Living in Norwich at the time, spent the first part of the night at work in the computer room (sub basement level) so didn't notice anything amiss. Walking home at about 3.30 I was blown off my feet a couple of times. Had to dodge some fairly substantial pieces of debris.
The next weekend I was doing a sculling head race on the Orwell near ipswich - the course was lined by the masts of sunken yachts.
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My cousin had a house near Gatwick at the time. His boss had "invited" himself to use my cousin's driveway to park his brand new Jag on while he went away on holiday. he returned to find some of my cousin's roof tiles embedded in the roof of his new car. ;D
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We were at a reunion for a group which bought a wood in memory of a friend in early 1987 this weekend. That wood has an interesting structure now. It's on the Wealden clay near Tunbridge Wells, and the largest trees are Ash, with large areas of even-aged Birch and Alder, there's a notable absence of Oak and Beech, with some large Cherry still present.
I remember driving home a week or so after the storm, and passing through (well around) TW, and then along Bunny Lane which is just to the south, where there were swathes of trees laid flat.
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Driving to work in the morning we passed an end-of-terrace that had lost the entire outer skin of its end wall, to add insult to injury the bricks had mainly landed on the owner's car.
The emergency generators at work were powering the clean room, photocopier, coffee machine and nothing else.
A work colleague had one of his trees come down slowly and rest on his roof, the contractors managed to lift it without any further damage, then dropped it straight on his neighbours car.
As ever, Southsea beach ended up on the seafront road, so did a number of beach huts and a few boats.
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Currently sitting in my BiL's house in Limerick, and wondering if all the trees around it will still be there once *this* Great Storm has passed on.
Who knew that Ireland had a hurricane season?
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As ever, Southsea beach ended up on the seafront road, so did a number of beach huts and a few boats.
I lived in Southsea at the time, I was walking back from Basins in the early hours and was chased down an alleyway by part of a tree. After that I walked down to the front to see how big the waves were (quite big!)
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I was living near Bury St Edmunds at the time. I slept through the whole thing and was a bit annoyed when I got up at 5 to find that we'd had a power cut, but I could see that the whole village was out so thought nothing of it. It was only a about 5.45, when I was a mile or so out of the village and found the road blocked by fallen trees that I realised anything had happened.
As it turned out, both roads out of the village were blocked so I stayed at home that day. I think the power came back three or four days later.
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There are sweet chestnut trees round here which are horizontal as a result of the 1987 storm but are still alive. The trunks now have branches which have turned into saplings, without their own root system but still dependent on the original tree.
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I woke up in the night to a window rattling, so shut it firmly then went back to sleep. Woke up as usual, switched on the radio as usual, & heard the Today programme talking about mass power cuts, etc. But the kettle was heating up as normal. The little grassy patch outside was covered in leaves & twigs, but otherwise all seemed normal.
So I carried on as normal. Washed, dressed, breakfast, set off for work - & as I walked round the first corner saw a tree across the road. It wasn't the only one I had to walk around to get to the office. There was one big old tree blocking the path across St Mary's churchyard, for example. It was there for days, but after a day or so a slice was cut out where the path ran. The roads were quiet, with not much traffic. Many of my colleagues didn't turn up that day. Some phoned in to say they couldn't make it. Others couldn't be contacted, due to dead phone lines.
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I remember it well. Two fence panels came loose, and the news was full of stories of exciting extreme weather in distant places like Kent.
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I was in the RAF serving at Episkopi Garrison in Cyprus at the time of the storm. Very pleasant weather it was at the time too. :-D
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I don't remember it at all, so possibly it arranged to avoid the East Midlands. Many things do. Most of the twentieth century, for instance.
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It wasn't any more than a stiff breeze in Birmingham. I walked up to Five Ways and did some shopping at Tesco. Enough to make your clothes flutter a bit.
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I remember waking up to one downed fence panel and the top half of the tree* at the corner of the col de sac had broken off, crossed the road and hit the roof of the house opposite. It then rolled down to land between their garage door and the car on the drive without scratching either.
I suspect we walked to school that day but the village trees were ok. Dad couldn't get to work on account of the main road out of the village being blocked in both directions. All the disruption was then repeated 4 years later in the '91 storm which took out another fence post.
* Some form of tall thin fur is the best description this then 6 year old can manage
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Wasn't it mostly a London and SE England storm? I don't remember it but I do remember the storm of October 1989, which brought the church spire down as well as several very large trees in Victoria Park.
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It was confined to the South and South East, Cudzoziemiec.
I was living in Farnborough at the time. I'd had some bad news the evening before, which resulted in many beers.
That meant I slept through the whole thing, including the tree on the other side of the road coming down and blocking said road.
A few weeks later I was in Preston and found myself scrunching through dried leaves. Effectively we didn't get an autumn in the SE that year. All the leaves went overnight.
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We had the high winds up in the North West, too. It just didn't make the news because, well... regions.
Travelling home from Altrincham to Nth Manchester around 1 am, I remember crossing Barton bridge on the (then) M63. Roadworks/widening and contraflow in full swing - 30 years on and nothing's changed - there was a Portakabin rolling down carriageway, end over end and a bloke struggling with a pole attatched to a great sheet of polythene which was trying to escape into the outside lane of the contraflow. I remember thinking it would be a good idea if he let go, the alternative looked like hang gliding about 100 feet above fuck all. Well, Urmston - but it's the same thing . . .
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I was out in it at four in the morning.
At the time, my partner and myself had a catering business and four in the morning was the time one of us would drive to our baker to collect our bread.
The bread had been baked. But the power had gone off before our baker had a chance to slice it. We sold mostly hand-cut door stops that day - but that was fine because a fair proportion of our clientele hadn't pitched up for work that day.
Driving? That was a laugh. It was mostly circumnavigating detritus of one sort or another that had been dumped in the road. It was like a war zone (not that I've ever been in one).
We were living on a council estate in Harrow at the time.
Several of the blocks suffered roof-loss.
Somewhere, I have a book of photographs (In the wake of the Hurricane) put together by a Kentish journalist who chartered a light aircraft the following day to record the devastation.
Sevenoaks no more.
Just one oak left.
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I was in Oxfordshire at the time, dad stationed at Brize Norton. Don't remember it being at all spectacular that far away from civilisation, just remember Ian McAskill on TV and the coverage of One-Oak.
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I don't remember it at all, so possibly it arranged to avoid the East Midlands. Many things do. Most of the twentieth century, for instance.
Well it managed to cause a bit of damage in Northants, but not a huge amount that I remember. Parents' garden still has a couple of fruit trees (a pear & an apple) that are between 35 & 45 deg. off vertical as a consequence.
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I was living in Horsham at that time so pretty much in the thick of it. My experience of it? Well the letter box flap rattled once o twice but I managed to ignore it and slept like a baby. Got up looked out at the scene of bins rolling around saplings flattened and an eerie lack of traffic...
Then I went out to walk to my bosses for a lift. Trees uprooted, sheds perched on hedges, householders wondering how their fence had finished up where it did.
My route took me over a level crossing and I amazed to see the amount of oxidation on the rails, this was main commuter line not some derelict siding, weird. Boss said work was cancelled. So I went back home, several pots of tea later I mooched down try to the pub, which was open despite no power, the ale was all hand pumped so winner all round!
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I remember it well. I didn't have to go to school as it no longer had a roof...
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This weekend I felled my first victims of Ash Dieback, so the cycle may repeat itself. I'm concerned that the response is a bit slow. Standing dead trees are hard to fell, as you can't influence the direction of fall. That caused deaths in the 70s and 80s with Elm. I foresee similar problems with Ash.
Out of interest, what can you do with live trees you can't with dead ones?
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I'm guessing that with dead trees:
A) there can be rot in the trunk affecting how the trunk will 'break'
B) for safety reasons, you can't climb the tree and take limbs off to alter the balance of the tree
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Plus you need to watch out for Widowmakers.
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I was in Epsom living with my parents. Work was on top of a hill just North of Sevenoaks.
I slept through it.
Mrs hatler on the other hand spent the evening at her parents' (between Sevenoaks and Tonbridge) and then headed home to a farm she was staying in about four miles away. Her pop warned her to go easily as it was a bit blowy. She recalls it being very warm. She too slept through it.
Next morning the quad in front of the farm house was littered with fallen several hundred year old oaks. Her Fiat 126 survived, but they had no power for a couple of weeks. It took her four days to get back to see her parents. When she got there her parents were in tears as their orchard of hundreds of trees was reduced to about 20. (They couldn't face clearing that field for about 15 years.)
My work was closed for a week, trees down everywhere.
My brother lived in one of the squares on Brighton seafront above Madeira drive), in a fourth floor flat. He was a journo working on the Evening Argus. He woke at 3am to the sound of pebbles hitting his windows ! He deduced (correctly) that there was probably a story or two to be had, so he set off for work. The only safe way to do this was to wait for a slight lull in the wind, then run to the next lamp-post and hang on until the wind eased enough for him to run to the next one.
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Plus you need to watch out for Widowmakers.
Is that elm trees ?
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Submarines, I thought. (I'm still avoiding them.)
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This weekend I felled my first victims of Ash Dieback, so the cycle may repeat itself. I'm concerned that the response is a bit slow. Standing dead trees are hard to fell, as you can't influence the direction of fall. That caused deaths in the 70s and 80s with Elm. I foresee similar problems with Ash.
Out of interest, what can you do with live trees you can't with dead ones?
When you are felling it's important to know that the tree is going to go in the right direction. You do that by creating a 'hinge'. http://www.husqvarna.com/uk/forest/when-working/usage/directional-felling/
That requires that the tree can move through a long enough arc without the hinge breaking, a dead tree isn't flexible enough to have an effective hinge, so will always tend to fall in the direction it is weighted in, if you are trying to pull it over with a winch, it will tend to fall at 90 degrees to the cable. It can then 'hang up'. Many fatalities occur when trying to bring down hung-up trees.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/treework/resources/casestudies.htm
A 29-year old self-employed firewood supplier was crushed by a falling tree. He had been asked to take down a number of mature hardwood trees on a farm and was being assisted by the farmer. A large beech tree was next to a road so a tractor, operated by the farmer, was being used to help direct the tree away from the road. Tension had being applied to the tree by a strop and rope attached to the tractor. It appears that the contractor had difficulties in making the felling cut and had failed to create a sufficient hinge to help control the tree as it fell. Before the felling cut was complete the tree started to go over but, despite the tension being applied by the tractor, it turned and fell back towards the road. The tree landed on top of the contractor as he tried to get clear, causing severe crush injuries to his chest, abdomen and spine.
How to prevent this type of accident:
Directional felling of large trees is highly skilled work and those carrying out the work must have the required level of training and experience to ensure that they are competent to do the job safely. It involves competent people using the correct equipment and felling techniques.
If you use a contractor to carry out tree work on your behalf then you need to satisfy yourself that the contractor you choose can do the job safely. This means making enquiries to assure yourself that the contractor has the right combination of skills, experience and knowledge. The degree of competence and, therefore, the extent of your enquiries will be determined by the level of risks and the complexity of the job.
Find out more:
FISA 805 Training and certification link to external website
INDG368 Using contractors - A brief guide PDF
Tree climbing operations AFAG 401 PDF
Chainsaws at work INDG 317
FISA 307 Chainsaw felling of large trees link to external website
FISA 310 Use of winches in directional felling and takedown link to external website link to external website
There'll be a lot of cases like that in the coming weeks.
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I remember a lot of Tree fellers & round timber hauliers from the north east , went out to Germany to help clear up the storm damaged forests . A lot of lads commented on how well the job was organised . Made the ( UK ) forestry commission look like amateur night.
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It was a bit blowy. I was staying with my parents.
The Succah my young brother had built for the recent Jewish festival of Succot, remained intact.
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I’m sure we’ve had a thread about this before as I remember writing something similar before, but here goes!
We had a nice quiet night in Manchester, and put the tellybox on to see the news being read by someone lit by a single lightbulb. I thought war must have broken out. We got on and went about or daily lives. Later we went to the Brockham Bonfire and were amazed at the damage across the SE.
It was definitely a storm for the rich South East ;D
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Plus you need to watch out for Widowmakers.
Is that elm trees ?
They are hung up broken branches in the crowns of trees, which have a tendency to drop on the head of whoever is felling the tree at the time, and account for something like 11% of chainsaw related fatalities.
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Plus you need to watch out for Widowmakers.
Is that elm trees ?
They are hung up broken branches in the crowns of trees, which have a tendency to drop on the head of whoever is felling the tree at the time, and account for something like 11% of chainsaw related fatalities.
Very true.
A 43-year old estate worker was struck by a tree branch. He was a qualified and experienced forester felling a diseased elm tree with a chainsaw in a remote woodland gulley. As the tree fell in the planned direction, a dead branch dropped and struck him on the head. The branch may have either fallen out of the felled tree or an adjacent tree that it was entangled with. Despite wearing an appropriate helmet, he died from head injuries.
How to prevent this type of accident:
Be very thorough in your assessment of the tree being felled. Look out for dead wood, insecure branches and any signs of decay both in the tree to be felled, and in adjacent crowns. Be constantly aware of likely danger, especially when the tree begins to fall.
After you have assessed the tree but still remain uncertain about its condition (or the condition of adjacent trees that could be affected) be prepared to leave the tree unfelled or change your felling method.
Woodland is often on the sort of ground that's unsuitable for agriculture in the UK, so it relies on skilled operators, rather than machinery.
Returning to Kent for the weekend made me realise that working in woods is a form of 'adventure leisure' in those areas without mountains. It's under tighter control these days, and only those with current certification get the fun. It does mean that there are going to be a lot of dead Ash in our woods.
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Reading these stories makes me think that using explosives would be a far safer way to fell trees. Whoever thought that standing next to something that can kill you, using a whirring chain covered with sharpened bits of metal (that can kill you) was a good idea?
Blow the bloody thing up from 100m away, I say.
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Reading these stories makes me think that using explosives would be a far safer way to fell trees. Whoever thought that standing next to something that can kill you, using a whirring chain covered with sharpened bits of metal (that can kill you) was a good idea?
Blow the bloody thing up from 100m away, I say.
In some circumstances, explosives can give the required result.
Early attempts at replicating what was observed in nature had varying results. Roy Finch and Ted Green (Finch 1996) undertook a number of trials at Windsor Great Park in the early nineties. Roy even resorted to using explosives to see what type of fragmented ends would result. The use of explosives is not now advocated in the UK for both the obvious reason of safety but also because it resulted in uncontrollable outcomes. It is interesting however to note that at a recent Ancient Tree Forum visit to Sweden, the Swedish army had been recruited at one of the nature reserves to attempt to promote and recreate the type of habitat that would favour a European target endangered invertebrate species (Osmoderma eremeta). This was carried out mainly on old birch and produced interesting shattered ends.
http://treeworks.co.uk/downloads/8%20-%20Coronet%20cuts%20&%20retrenchment%20pruning%2017%20April%202003.pdf
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You want to use explosives in the bear-rich environment? I wouldn't, not given that most bears are constitutionally armed.
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... a recent Ancient Tree Forum visit...
Sounds like an invasion by Ents.
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It was indeed 30 years ago today that we woke up to such devastation. Frightening stuff.
I was in Germany at the time. Colleague from Sevenoaks sent his dad a postcard addressed to Oneoak, Kent and it got through. Pater was miffed.
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Diamond wire cutting of concrete is pretty easy and quick. I can't imagine that it would be too difficult to wire cut timber remotely with man-portable equipment. Bit expensive though...
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Plus you need to watch out for Widowmakers.
Surely nobody's still flying the F104-G?
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According to Mr Wales's Wiki, there are six flyable ones in Leftpondia -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_Lockheed_F-104_Starfighters#United_States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_surviving_Lockheed_F-104_Starfighters#United_States)
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A lot of the bread and butter tree-felling is now done by harvesters or tree-shears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwOrKizyuxA
That's left the really difficult work in the hands of a shrinking group of skilled chainsaw operators. There are still plenty of tree-surgeons about, but they don't get much practice in windblow. There's not a big pool of labour to clear up after storms, so safety gets a bit sketchy.
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Plus you need to watch out for Widowmakers.
Is that elm trees ?
I believe the nickname has also been applied to both Eucalyptus & Horse Chestnut. Both have a nasty habit of dropping large branches on people without warning.
True story. MrsLurker walked to local garden centre. On the way back, about 20 minutes later, sodding great conker tree branch over a foot in diameter at it's "root" lying across the footpath and into the road. On a fine summer's day with barely a breath of wind.
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Having recently read Anthony Beevor's Ardennes, Hitler's Last Gamble, one of the things mentioned several times is that the amount of shelling that took place, including proximity fused shells, resulting in huge amounts of shrapnel embedded in trees rendered forestry in large parts of the Ardennes practically impossible and the timber worthless.
Were the swedes intending to harvest any trees where they let the military loose?
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I once fell out of a horse chestnut tree (when conkering goes wrong, series 3, episode 19). I didn't fall on anyone. A hawthorn bush broke my fall which was good (because I'd climbed right to the top and bad because it was a spiky hawthorn bush and not a big fluffy pillow).
Gave me my first proper scar for chicks to dig (though there was no chickdiggery for a while as I was about 10 and come to think of it, I'm probably still waiting) – one of the branches went through my arm and came out of my armpit. So I had to pull it out. Blood went everywhere. It was ace though it did, I suppose, set the scene for catastrophic blood loss in later life.
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Having recently read Anthony Beevor's Ardennes, Hitler's Last Gamble, one of the things mentioned several times is that the amount of shelling that took place, including proximity fused shells, resulting in huge amounts of shrapnel embedded in trees rendered forestry in large parts of the Ardennes practically impossible and the timber worthless.
Were the swedes intending to harvest any trees where they let the military loose?
It was entirely for this beetle.
Osmoderma eremita, the hermit beetle or Russian leather beetle,[2] is a species of European beetle in the Scarabaeidae family. Adults reach between 28 and 32 mm in length.[3]
The larvae develop in hollow trees. Oak is the most important tree species, but the larvae may develop in any tree species with suitable hollows.[2] Due to habitat loss and fragmentation, the species has decreased all over its distribution range. For that reason the species is protected in most European countries, and has been given the highest priority according to the EU's Habitats Directive.[2] O. eremita can be found everywhere in Europe, except for The United Kingdom, Iceland, Ireland, Malta, Portugal, and San Marino.[4]
Larva
Trained conservation detection dogs are being used in monitoring larvae in Italy.[5]
The UK has the best veteran trees in Europe, other nations are a bit tidy-minded, so we don't tend to need to do anything much different. We tend to concentrate on maintaining our first place in knackered old hulks of trees.
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A standard tactic used by monkeywrenchers against loggers in the Pacific Northwest is to hammer sturdy nails into trees, to the discomfiture of chsinsaws.
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Knackered old trees are great for bats.
1987. My first year at Uni and the Chemistry Soc away day. I made it into college via a diversion from New Malden to Morden to get the tube as there were the Wrong Kind of Leaves [1] on the line to Waterloo. Got to College and discovered the awayday had been cancelled. Spent the following years bemoaning the loss of trees on Box Hill and environs.
[1] The sort that are still attached to the tree.
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A standard tactic used by monkeywrenchers against loggers in the Pacific Northwest is to hammer sturdy nails into trees, to the discomfiture of chsinsaws.
I believe that they used buried ceramic rods in Australia to thwart the loggers on the east coast. They may get past the chainsaw, but a harvester and the mill don't like it.
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A lot of the bread and butter tree-felling is now done by harvesters or tree-shears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwOrKizyuxA
They are cool bits of kit but I've only seen them clear cutting plantations, rather than removing an individual tree from a congested forest. Obviously you have to be able to get a decent-sized excavator into place. Wirecutting kit is man-portable.
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A lot of the bread and butter tree-felling is now done by harvesters or tree-shears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwOrKizyuxA
They are cool bits of kit but I've only seen them clear cutting plantations, rather than removing an individual tree from a congested forest. Obviously you have to be able to get a decent-sized excavator into place. Wirecutting kit is man-portable.
The safest pace to be when a tree is being felled is right next to the trunk, assuming you know what you are doing. Dead branches are a problem, hence my concern that Ash dieback casualties are tackled sooner, rather than later. Dead branches tend to get rattled out of the canopy in high winds. It's poor directional felling that causes a lot of hung-up trees.
The casualty stats usually highlight those with access to chainsaws, but with no training.
Booby-trapping trees to prevent felling is an interesting area. I've done a lot of felling to improve the structural diversity of woodland, under the direction of conservation bodies. That can lead to MTB and motorcycle use, which undermines the aims of the management work. You get the occasional hothead who advocates stringing wire or rope across tracks. Obviously, an approach which can cause injury or death is unacceptable.
I'm doing the same thing as loggers, but with a positive environmental outcome. I'm also engaged in cycling, which is damaging in some contexts. So I'm not that keen on activists taking things into their own hands, I see no glamour in creating hazards for workers.
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A lot of the bread and butter tree-felling is now done by harvesters or tree-shears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwOrKizyuxA
The power of hydraulics never ceases to amaze....
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We had the high winds up in the North West, too. It just didn't make the news because, well... regions.
What seemed to me to be a reasonable assessment was that the storm that hit Se England in October 1987 was a 200-year event in SE England, but the equivalent would be a 40-50 year even in the Western Isles.
It therefore has to be remembered that buildings, trees etc. in SE England will have been built/grown to a particular standard - one which would have seen them demolished 50 years ago in Stornoway.
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I had just left home and was woken up by the sound of roof tiles blowing off my boyfriend's roof.
That was my very first dealings with the Tradesman species.
When we moved to Lovedean about four years later, the bluebell woods around HMS Mercury were absolutely stunning in the Spring. Apparently the opening out of the woods after so many trees were lost, led to more bluebells.
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There's much to say for the wholesale revival of coppice practice in British woodlands.
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Knackered old trees are great for bats.
1987. My first year at Uni and the Chemistry Soc away day. I made it into college via a diversion from New Malden to Morden to get the tube as there were the Wrong Kind of Leaves [1] on the line to Waterloo. Got to College and discovered the awayday had been cancelled. Spent the following years bemoaning the loss of trees on Box Hill and environs.
[1] The sort that are still attached to the tree.
Cricket or baseball?
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As ever, Southsea beach ended up on the seafront road, so did a number of beach huts and a few boats.
I lived in Southsea at the time, I was walking back from Basins in the early hours and was chased down an alleyway by part of a tree. After that I walked down to the front to see how big the waves were (quite big!)
Quite by chance I came across the reason I was walking back from Basins the other day.
(https://i.imgur.com/M76yhOj.jpg)