Tom Godfrey was born in 1928 and brought up in Long Eaton. In 1939 his family lived in Manchester Street (between Nelson Street and Wyvern Avenue). He retired from his position at Cambridge University in 1993. In 2011 he sent the following letter to the Sawley & District Historical Society.
Much has been written and said recently about the cold weather of the winter of 2010-2011, but the winter of 1946-1947 was much worse. Then there was virtually no home central heating and fuel was in very short supply. Creature comfort was a matter of how much clothing we wore. Outside workers called it two overcoat weather. We all had to accept it as a way of life. Now that I am well past eighty years old, I felt I should write down the memories of my personal experiences of that time before I become unable to pass them on.
In the early part of 1947 I was an undergraduate at Cambridge University, living in a room in college. The cold weather proved very unpleasant. Though the cold was a real problem to many we were to a large extent indifferent. Our life carried on as usual as far as teaching and study were concerned. The College kitchens managed to feed us adequately but sometimes the menu was very strange. Once we were presented with seal meat stew which was rather unpleasant and was not repeated. The electric power reductions meant that electric clocks which then only ran from the mains were constantly slow by as much as twenty minutes during the day, but they were always right at four o’clock in the morning.
The only way of heating my room was a gas fire which was totally inadequate since the gas pressure was very low. However, it was not too much of a trial since I was young and fit. The river Cam became partly frozen over and rowing was temporarily suspended. When one could get out on the river the splashes from the oar blades would freeze on the upper part of the oars. However, we had some fun and made light of the difficulties.
At the end of term, the thaw had started, and the BBC radio was predicting widespread flooding. I was very apprehensive of what would happen to my home-town of Long Eaton and further downstream in Beeston and Nottingham. These were all in the flood plain of the river Trent. Serious flooding had occurred there on several occasions in recent memory. We were then not on the phone at home so before I set out, I telephoned a school friend whose father said the river was rising but there were no serious problems. This was at mid-day. It later transpired that the new Ladybower reservoir up in the Derbyshire hills which was only partly full at the end of the freeze was rapidly filling and this had merely delayed the rising of the waters giving false hopes.
I caught the afternoon train at Cambridge to Kettering along the line now closed and changed for the train to Trent Station which was due in about 8.20 p.m. if my memory is correct. The train passed through Red Hill tunnel and then over the bridge which spanned the River Trent. It was still light enough to see that the water level was almost up to the bridge girders, instead of the normal fifteen feet or more below. The railway was on a downward gradient from the bridge so there would certainly already be flooding in parts of the town. The train stopped at Trent Station, now sadly non-existent. It was normally a twenty-five-minute walk home. I alighted to find that the platform was dry, but the water was beginning to reach the sleepers of the track and the station was an island in the midst of the flood. The access from the station to the road went under the railway; the tunnel walkway was completely flooded, and the road itself was therefore under several feet of water. The main line passing through the town was still on a slight downward gradient from the station. It was obvious that the footpath alongside but below the railway together with the part of the town at the end of the footpath would also be flooded and impassable.
There appeared to be no way of leaving the station so I asked the ticket collector for his advice, and he told me that the only way into the town was along the high-level goods line but I would have to wait until a railwayman with a lamp was ready to leave and that he would escort me. I did not have to wait long. I reached town that way but knew I would not be able to get home. After pondering the situation, I called at the Police Station and was told that stranded people could sleep in the Town Hall. By the time I reached there it was well past ten o’clock. I was given a welcome cup of tea and conducted to the Council Chamber where there were already several others preparing for the night. We were provided with blankets to keep us warm. It didn’t take long to get to sleep.
In the morning, I went in search of something to eat and then made my way towards home. As expected, the way was completely blocked but a boat had been requested, and it would take five or six at a time past the flood waters. The boat eventually arrived, and I was able to reach dry land near my home in mid-afternoon. Two men wearing thigh waders walked behind the boat pushing and steering it. Thankfully where I lived was in a slightly higher area forming an island surrounded by flood waters. Once home I was able to get food and warmth and join with family and neighbours in bemoaning the situation. We had a vegetable garden and kept chickens on a plot in a lane only three or four hundred yards from the house but a few feet below it. The chickens and their feedstuff had been brought home and the coal shed served as a temporary chicken house. Most plots in the lane were similarly under water and their owners were forced to make temporary arrangements for their chickens and pigs.
We were lucky; the peak water level reached to a few inches below the ground floor joists of our house before draining away. Much of the lower part of the town was under water and many houses had water above the first-floor level. Our town together with Beeston and Nottingham was the area probably the worst hit of all in the country when reckoned on the number of houses and other buildings flooded. Well over thirteen thousand homes were inundated as well as many factories and shops.
When the floods receded, and it was possible to get out I cycled to see where the flood waters had washed away the Cavendish Bridge carrying the A6 (now renumbered A50) trunk road over the river Trent near Shardlow. The army had been called in and the soldiers of the Pioneer Corps were preparing the bridge abutments for the Royal Engineers to erect a Bailey bridge. I had my father’s old plate camera with me and took a splendid picture of the scene. I have often wondered what happened to that plate or whether any prints were taken from it; I would love to see that view again. It did not take long to get this bridge open, and it remained in use until a new permanent bridge together with the necessary road diversion was constructed a few hundred yards away, but it was several years before that was open for use.
