Source: Sydney Morning Herald
URL: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18014266
Date: 20/03/1947
Event: Floods "as serious in many areas as any ever recorded"
Credit: Sydney Morning Herald, Trove (National Library of Australia)
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD - MAR 20, 1947
Flood Ordeal - Britain Still Takes It
By A Staff Correspondent In London
AFTER probably the severest winter they have ever experienced, thousands of families living in the river valleys of the fen country of Southern England have now been driven from their homes by floods as serious in many areas as any ever recorded.
I have just returned from a day at Windsor, in the Thames valley, where about 500 families so far have been forced to abandon their homes and seek shelter in big draughty halls, in schools and churches, where refuge centres have been established.
From the outlying country hundreds more are coming in from flooded villages, some of which, like Datchet, two miles away, are surrounded by swirling water and are completely cut off.
Windsor itself is being served by only one railway line, the alternative Southern Railway line being feet under water. Through this lovely old town was passing all the traffic from the western Thames valley, all other main roads being unusable.
At first sight it looked like the scene of a major army operation. Big Army trucks were racing through its streets westward to towns like Maidenhead, which is facing disaster. Army ducks laden with furniture were spluttering uphill towards the refuge centres.
Homes Flooded
It is the low-lying residential area - about one-third of the town's area - which is under water, and here great Army tanks were blundering through water five feet deep, taking off residents' goods and chattels from homes through which the river flowed.
The whole population in the lower part of the town was wearing gumboots. Faces were strained and eyes weary, but everywhere I went I heard only how serious the floods were elsewhere, how fortunate Windsor was to be on a hill.
At the top of Oxford Street, where it joins High Street, which winds uphill towards the great grey castle, there stands a newly-painted signpost proclaiming: "To the river and gardens, one mile." I was standing near this when eight-year-old Les Warmsley introduced himself.
The river was actually four or five yards away; the gardens were invisible. Oxford Street was a sheet of muddy, eddying water, lapping over the lower windows of the houses, most of which were deserted. The boy told me he had been evacuated two days previously from Reading to stay at Windsor with his aunt. The previous night the floods raced into his aunt's home.
He hailed a punt, and we were ferried a few hundred yards down to where his aunt lived. We disembarked at the doorway, stepping into about a foot of water which covered the ground floor. Farther down the street we would have stepped into about three to four feet. Mrs. Warmsley first apologised for the untidiness of the house, and then told her story.
"Our street has been flooded now for two days, but it was not until last night, when it rained, that the water entered downstairs," she said.
"We did not know how seriously the river was rising, and we were unable to use the telephone because our telephone line came down in the week-end storm. So we moved up to the second floor, and then my husband went next door to help them there.
"Somebody must have done a lot of organising last night, because just as my husband was getting ready to wade to town early this morning, an Army tank arrived with the morning milk and some food. I gave them an order for groceries I wanted, and told them I had decided to stay here.
No Coupons
"The arrangement seemed ideal to me because when I offered to give them coupons for the bread they said: 'Send them to Strachey; we haven't time for red tape.'
"Then a duck arrived, going from house to house down the street to take off all those who had to go to work.
"Later this morning I had two schoolboys landed here helping me to get some things up from down below. They can't go to school because the school is under water - so they don't mind floods much."
As we were talking the postman came past in a punt, calling out, "Mail," and handing letters up to people on the end of a long pole.
From the Warmsleys' windows I had a good view across miles of flooded country. About half a mile away the normal Thames bank was marked by the swimming pool dressing-sheds, of which only two or three feet protruded from the water. The high diving tower was only four or five feet out of the water.
Across the Thames the water extended almost as far as I could see. Water covered haystacks, and only the bushy upper branches of the smaller trees were visible.
While I talked with Mrs. Warmsley the evacuation of whole streets farther away towards the river was continuing. I went to see some of the evacuated families. They were settling down in the church hall under the shadow of the castle.
Army trucks had just pulled up outside and soldiers were unloading Army stretchers and blankets. A clergyman was making up a list of volunteers to staff the communal feeding centre. I looked from a window towards where Eton lay completely flooded. Eton pupils had all been sent home by the headmaster.
"My crops are under all that," a woman told me. "Less food for somebody."
"Of course, if it rains again now it will be really bad," she added thoughtfully. I wondered admiringly what she meant by "really bad."