February 2nd 1953

By Monday, the water had more or less drained from the main roads, but the job of restoring the houses was going to take a very long time. Everything was covered with a thick layer of mud. Those with an upper floor, like Martin and Mary, more or less continued to live on the upstairs floor – as they gradually made bits of their houses liveable in again.

For Mary, the kitchen had to come first. The Rayburn burned wood and coal, and once it dried out, they managed to make it work again. The place smelled of rot, which got worse every day, despite getting rid of the organic waste first thing. Martin, of course, had to go back to school each day, but when he returned home, he got on with the scrubbing and cleaning.

Ladies from the Red Cross and other organisations arrived on Tuesday morning, ready to do their bit. Some shovelled out muck – some washed down the surfaces of the furniture, some scrubbed walls. Not a single house on High Street or Holt Road, or the Green itself was untouched by the flood – but those slightly uphill from the main coast road had perhaps 4 feet of flooding while the worst hit had 9 feet. The degree of anticipation and organisation varied greatly. Some had expected a storm and had put their spare door wood in place and blocked it in with clay. Some not only did nothing before the flood, but made no attempt to move any of their furniture or food upstairs. Most, like Martin, had done all they could in the time available, so had nothing to feel guilty about.

As soon as things got more normal, Martin said to Mary, “You know you said you would tell me about where you were that night when we had a bit more time. I think we should take a break and you can tell me now.”

“You won’t believe me,” said Mary.

“Of course I will, love. I know you wouldn’t lie to me. Was it so awful that you don’t want to talk about it? Were the people unkind to you?”

“Of no, they were lovely to me – gave me food and drink, and clothing and a beautiful warm bed in a room with a fire. I couldn’t have been looked after better.”

“Who did you say these people were?”

“I didn’t say. You wouldn’t know them.”

“Well, where exactly did they live?”

“At Heron House.”

“Oh, we know them, don’t we?”

“No, I don’t mean them at all. It wasn’t them.”

“But it was somebody who was staying at their house?”

“No, not exactly, but sort of like that. Yes, they were staying at their house.”

“But the current owners didn’t know you were there?”

“No, they didn’t know about it. They were off being good Samaritans at the church!”

“But they found out the next day about how their friends had rescued you?”

“Well, no, I didn’t say anything.”

“Don’t you want to thank them for their hospitality? Even if they weren’t there, it was their roof and their food you were eating.”

“Well, not exactly.”

“What was the name of these people who helped you.”

“Mrs. Rebecca Jackson and her servant Polly.”

“I don’t think I have ever heard of her. Is she a relative of theirs?”

“I don’t know. Probably she might be. A very distant cousin or something like that.”

“Well, I would like to meet her and thank her for rescuing you. You say you had a bump on the head and if she hadn’t taken you in, you might have died on the road from exposure. It was a cold frosty night. Some of the locals who were out in it nearly did die.”

“I don’t think you can thank her personally because she isn’t there anymore.”

“Did she rush off? The roads are all blocked along the coast still. Where was she going to?”

“I don’t know exactly, Martin. Can we leave it there?” asked Mary, starting to feel pressured by his unrelenting questioning.

“Well, I have heard that they are going to give awards for those who did rescues in the flood, and I think we should put her name forward for it. I will tell Mr. Bishop about it, and he can put it in play.”

“Oh, please don’t, Martin. She wouldn’t want anyone to know. She would be so upset if we made a big thing out of it. She is a very quiet woman – very shy and retiring."

“And yet she put herself out considerably to save your life. I do wish we could do something for her privately, if not publicly, just to show how much we appreciate all she did.”

“It gets me upset thinking about it, love. Can’t we just leave it for now? We have so much work to do yet and yet we have already accomplished so much. Did I tell you that Betty Day was with the Red Cross workers who came to help today? You know Betty. Her husband Jan is the housemaster for Kenwyn. Of course, you know her, what I am thinking of. Anyway, it was her oldest boy, Philip who rescued me and brought me here, and her younger sons, Chrif and Nick were in the play you produced last year. You remember how much we laughed at Chrif. Anyway, Betty was a great help. She doesn’t mind doing a bit of hard work when she has to. She was in charge of the group and she made sure the other ladies did their share too.”

“I’m sure she did – and I am sure they did, in order to avoid her sharp tongue.”

“She doesn’t suffer fools gladly, nor slackers, not that there were any of those around here today.”

Mary sighed with relief that the questioning about her night away was finally over. She knew she should tell somebody – she wanted to tell Martin, but she thought he would think she had dreamt it all, or that she was mad. She sometimes thought herself that she must have dreamt it, but all those pictures kept reappearing in her mind. The house with its strange furnishings, the layout of the street, the ships in the harbour, the things Rebecca had said about how Cley was set up then.

She hadn’t dreamt it. How could she have dreamt all those things? And most of all the feeling clung to her that somehow this strange woman, Rebecca, was important in her life. Over the past week she had several times walked past Heron House and remembered in great detail all that had transpired, but it was all still a great mystery. Best to forget it for now and get on with the cleaning.

By the end of the week, the house was almost back to normal. Some of the bits of furniture had to be thrown out, and all the soft furnishings like cushions but they had more than they wanted anyway, or so Mary told herself. The room seemed bigger without the usual clutter. She missed the knickknacks that had been smashed by the storm or just floated away. But she had a good wooden table and 4 stout chairs and various wicker based chairs which cleaned up all right. She had to remove the covers, but she was good with a needle and could soon make new ones. Luckily her supply of fabric was safe in the attic.

Of course the storm was the talking point in the town and all the surrounding towns for the next period of time. Everyone wanted to know why it had happened, whether it might happen again, why they weren’t warned.

The Eastern Daily Press ran stories about it each day, and Martin bought a paper and brought it home with him every night. They gradually began to piece together the series of events.

First of all it had been a high tide – and 7 in the evening is when high tide is at its highest. Then there had been a strong wind – some say it was 100 miles per hour and some had it at 120. Then came the breaking of the sea defences – walls and stone barriers that had been built up naturally by the sea bringing in rocks over the years, and others which had been built specifically to keep the sea out. There had been many other floods in Cley – one only six years previously, but this was the worst in history. The last big one was in 1893 – and before that there was a bad one in 1853. “I know about that one,” thought Mary, but she didn’t say anything out loud.

Stories began appearing in the paper of the numbers of people who died. Only 2 had died in the nearby villages - none in Cley itself. One woman in Salthouse, the neighbouring village had broken her leg at the start of the flood, and her husband had put her on the dining room table. The force of the water washed her out the window and she was drowned.

For the whole storm, which swept the entire East coast, the death toll was 307. Over 5000 homes in Norfolk were destroyed or badly damaged. The country’s sea defences were broken in 2,000 places and nearly 40,000 acres of farmland were flooded.

The papers called the flood a surge on top of a spring tide. The predicted water level was to 22.9 feet on that night, but the actual level was 31 feet, making the surge 8 feet 1 inch.

Amongst the other causes as well as the wind were the heavy rains, and the state of the moon which of course controls the tides on the high seas and the rotation of the earth. There had been a full moon two days previously and the winds of hurricane force had started in the Orkneys and Moray and built as they progressed down the coast of the North Sea. The normal ebb of the tide was blocked by the fury of the wind.

Mary clipped the articles from the EDP as she felt it was something that the children in years to come would like to know more about it. But, she of course had missed much of the fear of that first night when the flood came.