April, 1953

In the spring, when all the flood mess had been got under control, and most people were back to normal lives, it was decided that there should be a ceremony in Cley to reward the bravery of those who saved lives. It would also be a chance to hear the stories of those who had been in danger on the night of the great flood.

Martin and Mary planned to go. Martin was still disappointed that Mary refused to come forward with information to thank the woman who had rescued her, but she was adamant.

One of the first to tell her story was Miss Freda Starr who ran the drapery and food shop in High Street, across the road from Martin and Mary. A woman nearing 50 now, Freda and her sister Ivy took over from their father George in running the shop and also employed Charlie Francis to run the grocery section.

Freda looking nervously at her huge audience said, “A strong wind had been blowing all Friday and reached gale force on Saturday and it was then in the right direction for a high tide. It grew worse and worse, so we put in our tide boards, complete with mud, and proceeded to clear the lower shelves in the shop, show-room and warehouses.

We also took up our dining room carpet and put it on the shop counter, out of the way of the water, as we thought, should it come into the house. We started to do this about 5.15 p.m. carrying on until about 6 o’clock. The water was in to about a depth of 8 inches by this time (our cat was on the front stairs and it was really amusing to see him. He was watching the water rise, his head going backwards and forwards, and I'm sure he was thinking, ‘Whatever are they doing now - putting all this water in my house!’)

“Charlie was busy down in the warehouse, trying to decide where to put the seed potatoes, which had been just delivered in hundredweight bags. I left him to put them where he thought safe, returned to the shop, glanced through the glass door leading into the house and noticed the water had gone down to about two inches in depth. So I went back to Charlie and said ‘Don't bother about moving the potatoes, the water has gone down a lot.’ (We were rather surprised, as high tide wasn’t until after 8 p.m.). We returned to the shop straightaway, but in those few seconds the water had risen to a depth of four feet in the dining room and we were unable to open the door and get into the house!

We did not know at the time, but what happened was, the bank surrounding the marshes on the Blakeney Road broke, releasing the water from our part of the village for a few seconds, flooding Newgate, Wiveton and Glandford (hence the drop in depth, previously mentioned) and then it surged into the street like the sea, breaking down and tearing open doors and windows. There were four of us - my sister, Mr. Lown (an elderly gentleman who worked part-time for us), Charlie and myself. When we realised how serious it had become, and saw from the showroom window the enormous waves tearing by, we climbed on the drapery counter, which was the highest, taking eight large biscuit tins with us, on which to stand if the water rose above the counter, which it soon did.


We had rescued and lit two candles, which was fortunate, as all lights went out. Luckily for us, there was a row of cot blankets on display above the counter. We wrapped these around ourselves and managed to keep reasonably warm. For four hours, we stood watching the stock gradually sink into the water - a bag of sugar which had been raised onto a chair - quaker oats, soap powder – eggs – apples - biscuits-anything that would float found its way into the middle of the shop, which was like a boiling cauldron. Miss Dyball, an elderly lady who lived with us, had, we hoped, gone to the sitting room above the shop, and to let her know we were safe we periodically knocked on the ceiling with a saucepan, which was hung there for display.

“Gradually the water subsided, and about 10.30 p.m. Charlie got off the counter to see if we could get into the house. When he tried to open the door into the dining room next the shop, it was blocked by the sideboard, which was on its back and floated near the door. He somehow managed to push it away, nearly putting his foot in a tureen which had floated from the cupboard. Then he came back and lifted my sister and me in turn to the stairs, where we were received with open arms by Miss Dyball. She had not heard the saucepan knocking owing to the noise of the gale, and feared we had all been drowned. Fortunately we had taken coal upstairs as we were having friends in next day for my birthday so she had got a lovely fire going. How thankful we were for the cup of tea in a basin (we had no crockery upstairs then) and for soup in the same basin later that night! All three of us had to use the same one, but none of us minded: we were so thankful to be alive and warm.

When we looked at the damage next morning, it nearly broke our hearts. It was absolute chaos. Everything the water reached was covered with black shiny mud. Goods we thought had been made safe by putting them on top of display cabinets and cases, were in the mud as everything, with one exception, had gone over backwards. The one exception was the kitchen cabinet, which had an enamel top. This must have saved it. My sister and I felt we could not cope with this, even with the help of Charlie and Mr. Lown; we needed our nearest relative. A depot had been opened at Cley Hall by Mrs. Knott (the Hall was out of the flood area) and from there I sent a message to my brother who lived near Heathrow, via a reporter, who said he would send it at 2 o’clock from Holt, when he returned there. At 4 o’clock I heard my brother’s voice in the kitchen. It was unbelievable and I quite thought he had come by aeroplane! He had heard of the disaster on the wireless at 8 o'clock on the Sunday morning. It said Cley, Norfolk was under water. He tried to phone us but all the telephones were out of order, so he contacted the police at Blakeney, found out what had happened and came straightaway.

“My brother had left home when he was sixteen, so he had never seen a high tide, let alone a flood. He just could not believe his own eyes at the state of the house and shop, for although we were three steps above street level, there had been 3’ 11” of water through the shop and house and up to 7 feet in the warehouse, which was at street level.

“The help we all received was wonderful. Cley School was open for meals served by the staff and pupils of Holt Hall School, as those in the flooded areas had no cooking facilities. They also made arrangements for people to have a wash, which was a real boon, as there was no clean water. All pumps and wells were condemned, so water was brought in in large tanks which were placed at different points in the village.

“When we looked at our premises on the Monday morning, we just did not know where to start, but my brother said he was going to make some wooden structures on which to dry the goods. This he did. They were huge, stretching from the floor to ceiling, with several bars across, very similar to a clothes horse. We called them the gallows. I don’t know how we endured wringing things out in the cold water (everything was soaked) and hanging them on the gallows, but fortunately they were in front of enormous fires, which we made in both rooms. We were able to do this as dry coal and wood was rushed to everybody as quickly as possible. It was a nightmare to walk about the shop, as soap powders, quaker oats, salt, butter etc etc were all mixed up on the floor with black mud, but gradually, with a supreme effort, we cleared a space in the showroom and served from there essential supplies of butter, bacon, flour and lard etc which had been rushed from Norwich by volunteers-some by drapery travellers; the customers said they "didn't mind a little mud". In spite of it being such a catastrophe, people were making the best of things and were in quite a jovial mood.

“After we had got ourselves organised, about the third weekend after the flood, my brother and I went out one Sunday morning to see what had happened in other parts of the village. A cottage under the Hill opposite the marshes had had its front door ripped off and the wooden floor of the room had risen completely to the ceiling! But the most amazing thing was, the huge reed beds which had broken away and been forced by the water up the roadway. They must have weighed hundreds of tons, and one of them was washed up to the front of a friend's house, missing it by a few inches. It was a miracle the house escaped being knocked down. An astonishing thing was that the tiny birds which frequent the reeds were there as if nothing had happened! My friend’s mother lived in the front room of the house and we went inside to see her. I can only compare the room to a stable. It was full of what looked like farm-yard manure. Actually it was reeds and rubbish washed in when the window was forced out. Mrs. Scarf, the occupant, narrowly escaped drowning - a terrible experience.

The other end of the village was chaos too. Every imaginable thing had been washed into the Pyghtle and onto Newgate Green-chairs, settees, chicken-houses. Our own large outside gate was lifted from its hinges and carried to the Pyghtle. It was absolute chaos everywhere.

“Our friends had funny experiences too. Ada, our neighbour, sat on her stairs and watched her teapot float round and round. She tried to grab it but the rush of water was too strong.

“The licensee of the Fishmongers’ Arms was very badly flooded indeed, found her tea which she kept in a yellow cooking bowl had floated to the top of a cupboard, caused a vacuum and stuck there. The tea was quite usable!

“Another friend, who is a laundress, had a lot of her customers’ laundry in the house at the time and of course, all was soaked with filthy black mud. With the help of a girl, Jean, she did her best to try and get them clean-a very difficult job with so little water. After about ten days she missed one of her teapots, a bright aluminium one; after hunting about for it and deciding it had gone off with the tide she quite jokingly said to Jean “I wonder if it's up the chimney?” It was a large old-fashioned fireplace with a huge opening to the chimney-they looked up (for fun) and spied a bright spot peeping through the soot-they scraped the soot away and lor there was the lost teapot, no worse for its experience in spite of the roaring fires it had endured for ten days.”

Everyone clapped and Freda looked very pleased as she retook her seat.