Aftermath: Schoolchildren - including Ronald Hall with the jug - help inthe clear-up

In the centre of the photograph stands a schoolboy, holding a jug.

His name is Ronald Hall and he was sent, along with other pupils from residential classes at Holt Hall, to assist with the clean-up operation in the aftermath of the flooding of the night of January 31, 1953.

Now 64, Mr Hall remembers the photograph being taken in someone’s home at Salthouse but has no recollection of which house, who the family were or how they fared in the floods.

The former postal worker now lives at Aylsham with his wife Rosemary. He grew up in Reepham and had little idea of what life was like on the bleak north Norfolk coastline.

“After the floods, the school decided we could help so we were sent to do as much as we could. We went to different houses and helped to clean up and do whatever jobs needed doing. But the devastation was terrible, I had never seen anything like it. I remember it vividly, even though it was 50 years ago. It was a terrible thing.”

Mr Hall was a helper, one of thousands who assisted where they could during the early part of February of that year. Others were more directly involved.

'It was a scene of utter desolation'

Retired farmer Tony Gent was a 13-year-old at boarding school when the floods hit in 1953 but has vivid memories of returning home to see the devastation. At that time Mr Gent’s father tenant-farmed four farms along the north Norfolk coast, including arable land at Snettisham Marshes and saltings on the seaward side of the old sea bank. In previous years they kept cattle on the land but luckily there were none grazing there at that time.

When he came home in February the tide had receded from the farmyard but the damage it had caused was clearly evident. “It was a scene of utter desolation,” he said. “As a 13-year-old boy I was very impressionable. I can remember seeing clothes hanging from trees and in the fields. Luckily our farmhouse was five miles away on a hill so we were not affected there but bungalows on the seafront had been swept away.

“They were the first to go along with shepherds’ cottages and all the contents and personal possessions of the owners. I believe 25 lives were lost at Snettisham – a tragic loss of human life.”

The farm buildings also went, all except for a wooden caravan that was used by the team that drove the steam ploughing engines. This had resolutely refused to move and Mr Gent believes it was because it was high off the ground and the water was able to pass through the iron wheels.

On the farming front, Mr Gent remembers stacks of wheat swept almost whole to neighbouring fields. Potatoes stored in clamps were in the dykes but when the clean-up process began some were collected by hand to allow for drainage and if any potatoes were sound they were graded and sold.

But the main work of rebuilding homes was a long and expensive job. “My father told me there were some emergency relief funds set up to help pay for the repairs and lots of grant aid but the impact was huge all along the East coast.”

For some time the land was unworkable because the salt content was so high. Years later Mr Gent took over the farms, finally retiring this year.

“There are areas of the coast which are vulnerable to flooding now, like Sea Palling, but I don’t believe we will see floods like 1953 again even with the increase in water levels that we are forecast.”

Rebuilding shattered lives

In the days and weeks that followed, people tried to rebuild their lives, returning to homes that were badly damaged by water. Some were left homeless and were found accommodation, others sheltered with relatives and friends and a Norfolk Flood Relief Fund was set up to offer assistance.

For Wells historian and author Geoff Perkins, the start of 1953 was a busy time.
He was in his early 20s, working for construction company Macleans of Cromer, and had been contracted to operate a drag-line excavator on the Holkham estate marshes from Wells to Burnham Overy Staithe.

By the end of January he had reached the Overy seabank when his boss suddenly asked him to go further down the coast to Overstrand to help build some sea defences.

On Saturday, January 31 he began excavating soil off the cliff face and loading it on lorries to transport it to Bacton. There it was tipped over the cliff to protect it as there was a big tide expected.
“If we had a thousand lorries it would not have helped because it was all gone that night,” he said. “Where the machine had stood at Overy earlier in the week the bank had broken and there was 10ft of water. All the dykes were filled up again with silt and rubbish and it was just luck that I had moved the machine to high ground.”

The next few weeks he was working all over the north Norfolk coast and even had to push Walcott post office back from the edge of the cliff. He went to Lowestoft to work with a diver grabbing soil off some valves so they could be opened to let the seawater out that was trapped behind a bank.

At Cley, a big reed bed had floated into the harbour so he brought it out and dumped it in a pit on the coast road which is now a birdwatchers’ car park. He also had to help look for two excavators and a bulldozer that were lost under the shingle bank. Then he went back to Overy and filled in gaps in the sea bank.
“Luckily my house was not damaged... It was very frightening, especially for the elderly. We were expecting a high tide but nothing like that. I think if it happened now there would be more people lost.

'There would be more damage now'

“In 1953 there were mostly fishermen and marshmen living along the coast and they knew what to do. They went out rescuing people but now all the roads would be blocked and there would be much more damage.”

Trainee accountant John Fox was at a dinner at the-then Royal Hotel in Norwich with his wife Alison when the floods hit. An employee of the East Suffolk and Norfolk River Board, at Bracondale, the 29-year-old soon found himself in the middle of the effort to stem the crisis.

“The wind was absolutely screaming outside and it was snowing,” he said. “Fire engines kept going past heading towards Thorpe. When we got home we turned on the radio and there was a very serious voice talking about the loss of life at Sea Palling, Salthouse and Cley and we sat up and listened to it.”

The board was responsible for maintaining the banks of main rivers in the two counties, including the Waveney, Bure and Yare, as well as the sea defences from Happisburgh to Winterton. The floods claimed the life of one worker after a bank on the River Alde gave way.

“When I next went into work there were workmen transferring sandbags from articulated lorries to smaller lorries outside the office at the top of King Street,” he recalled. “The army had completely taken over our place. I went into my office and there was a major standing there – on the telephone – shouting that he wanted this and that and his language was quite fruity.

“One of my vivid memories was the sight of boys from the Hollesley Bay Colony in Suffolk filling sandbags near Blythburgh. They were digging heavy clay, which was sticking to their Wellington boots. The lads were wearing short trousers and looked blue with cold.”

In those days the board paid workmen in cash on site – Thursdays for staff in Norfolk and Fridays for Suffolk workers. But because of the floods, a lot of the gangs could not be reached so in some cases, money was taken to the Fisherman’s Return at Winterton for the foreman to distribute.

Work to repair sea defences after floods at Horsey in 1937/38 had only just been completed but the damage caused by the 1953 floods dwarfed that. However, money seemed to be no object for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.

“Two or three times a week we would telephone the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in London to request more cash – up to £200,000 at a time – which would be deposited in our bank the next day.”

But after the army had gone, a day of reckoning finally arrived.

“My boss called me into the office and said ‘John we have got to fill in these forms from the Ministry detailing what we have spent against the monies they have advanced to us. Fill them in as quickly as you can and don’t bother about the odd mistake – if they are right you won’t hear any more about them, if they are wrong they will jolly well soon tell us!’ My first efforts came to £1.3m – a lot of money in those days – and there were no repercussions.”