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Memories of the 1953 Floods by Georgina Williams On the last night of January 1953, my husband and I finished decorating the last room of our house, and were feeling pleased, but very tired. We were talking about how we were looking forward to mastering the art of riding a tandem, when the weather improved, as we got ready for bed. It was late, and the weather was very cold and windy, but the moon was shining. I couldn't sleep and lay there listening to the wind, when I heard the sound of water running. I looked out of the window and could see water running down the road. Just then a railway engine came along the track blowing it's whistle to alert people that something was up. This was about midnight. I called my husband, and I went downstairs and found water coming in at the side of the front door and also the back. I had a bucket of towels soaking, and I tipped them into the sink, thinking that I could catch the water as it came in. How ridiculous! The cat was floating on the mat, so we gathered him up and collected a few essentials, and went back to warm up in front of the gas fire. A little while later the lights went out. I suddenly remembered that our neighbour's daughter was sleeping downstairs, so we banged on the wall to wake them. It was quite frightening to think that she could have drowned. It was very dark, and I remembered that I had some candles in a drawer, so decided to go and get them. When I reached the 5th step from the bottom of the stairs, I went waist deep into the water, and found the back room and kitchen much deeper as it had a step down. I went back and after drying off, decided to go back to bed as there was nothing we could do until the morning. When it was daylight, we looked out the back window and could see that the sea wall opposite us had been breached, so we were at the worst end of the village. All of the furniture had been tipped up and the rooms were in a mess. So much for all of our hard work in completely redecorating the house! We decided to go to my Mother-in Law's who lived further up the road, as the water had retreated from there. We eventually spent several weeks with them, during which time, we tried to clean up the mud and silt. My parents came to visit, and managed to reach us by walking along the railway lines, which was not electrified at that time. (Although they were flooded as they lived near the sea wall, their house was higher, and they did not get water in). It was impossible to get to work, and water was brought round to the village, which we had to boil. The men spent hours filling sand bags in order to fill in the gap in the sea wall. We also listened to the radio, and learnt that Canvey Island had been hit as well, with loss of life, so we felt that we had been very lucky. The RAF came round with powerful heaters which were put under the floorboards to dry them out. The walls were stripped of wet paper to shoulder height, to allow them to dry out. Everything was damp and horrible. We were not insured, so we started to strip chairs etc. to see if anything could be washed or repaired. Also the shed with tools and bicycles were a mess. It took a long time to recover and get things looking normal again, and the salt kept coming out on the surface of the walls for ages. We never did get out on the tandem, because early October, our daughter was born.
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