Well the labour leader:

[Terry Casey]

1953. But that was wind, not rain.

Northerly gale force winds held back the high tide in the North Sea so that the level didn't drop. The next high tide charged down the North Sea with the wind behind it leading to a double height tide.

Kings Lynn was badly flooded, large parts of the Netherlands were under water, as was Canvey Island. We lived in Grays and stayed dry but both Purfleet and Tilbury, 3 miles west and east respectively were both badly flooded.

Other places would have suffered too but I was only 8 at the time and that is all I can remember!

[charles]

It was The Wey that flooded Guildford, but The Mole that took down a road bridge & railway bridge in Cobham and flooded West Molesey

[Adrian]

In message <qqgr5m$3ee$ [e-mail]>, Andrew [e-mail] writes

From this morning's Telegraph :

"Fishlake, contrary to popular assumption, is not named after any propensity to flood. The Doomsday Book village on the outskirts of Doncaster was actually named by the Danes after a stream that once meandered nearby."

Oh, and as the subject is regarding the Labour leader, is it of any interest that the last MP (we don't have any at the moment) was one Ed Milliband.

Adrian

[The Natural Philosopher]

Was it 68? I remember it a bit eqarlier. Yup teh Mole and the Wey lost it completely and the vbridge at Cobham went and G'ford was well flooded.

[Pancho]

Poppycock.

Next you'll come up with some ridiculous idea that they would build a massive barrier, costing £100's of millions, to protect us from tidal surges.

[John Rumm]

ok I wont faucet...

[charles]

Yes, the year my eldest daughter was born.

[Ian Jackson]

In recent years, we do seem to have been having more and longer periods of heavy rain than we used to [1]. However, from what I hear, the flooding has been considerably exacerbated by the various authorities no longer dredging rivers, and ensuring that gutters, ditches, drains and other waterways are kept clear of debris (especially, at the moment, fallen leaves). Also (as has been pointed out) there have been a lot of new houses build on land which has a higher possibility of being flooded

- and where some of the pre-emptive flood defences have turned out to be inadequate. [1] Blamed (by those who know about such things) on the CO2 emissions from my old Ford Escort.

[The Natural Philosopher]

In fact we don't.

Its just a 'seem' brought on by more publicity.

Correct. the 'eco' way is to let natural flooding happen, once you have destroyed the ecology by building places for people to live on the floodplains and then blame it on 'global warming'.

Today it is coming down in buckets. It is as damp dreary and cold a November day as it ever was back in the 1950s. Nothig has changed.

[Adrian]

In message [e-mail]>, Ian Jackson [e-mail]> writes

Not just those built on flood plains. There have been plenty of hoses built on "sponge" land, land that used to soak up rain water, then release it slowly, now that water speeds off and causes flooding that didn't used to happen. There doesn't need to be an increase in the rainfall figures for the incidences of flooding to increase.

Adrian

[bert]

Watford Gap.

[bert]

I agree. We've been keeping rain records for the last 20 Years+ and it's no more now than the average from when records began up to 1956. (We have a 1956 geographic Atlas).

<Snip>

[bert]

Oh well.

[nightjar]

I know it is Watford. I remember the road signs to 'Watford and The North'.

[Marland]

Though many people still don?t realise there are two Watfords, the one that is now a London suburb at the end of the Metropolitan line and the one that is a large village in Northants after which the nearby gap and the Motorway services are named, The phrase North of Watford to allude to the North starting from them has been attributed to both places , North of Watford Gap has no ambiguity and due to geography forcing the various transport links from Roman times through the Canal and Railway eras up to the Motorway age through the convenient gap in the hills and being a bit further from the centre of London than 20 miles or so is probably a better candidate .

GH

[Bob Eager]

The real Watford Gap was one of the answers on Mastermind last night...

[Robin]

And I remember seeing the signs at Scotch Corner on the A1 more than 50 years ago indicating that I /still/ wasn't in the North.

Plus ca change...

<https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.4365527,-1.6685229,3a,75y,87.17t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1seTngCm24jexgBFp3gq5TCA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?> [For the benefit of Brian G it's a sign on the A1(M) approaching Scotch Corner in Yorkshire indicating you keep going North for "The North"]

[Brian Reay]

If, as it is claimed, we are undergoing ?global warming? and therefore moving towards more arid conditions, surely we should be getting LESS rain.

Oh dear, another inconvenient fact for the global warming alarmists to ignore and/or invent some fudge to try and explain.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The great thing about global warming is that it leads to rain and drought. Hot weather and cold weather. Ice melting and record snowfall. IN fact everything is caused by global warming.

[Ian Jackson]

"The North" doesn't really start to begin until you can see the Penshaw Monument (away to the right, a few miles away). You know you're nearly at "The North" when you first glimpse the Angel Of The North (often difficult because of all the trees they have allowed to grow up in front of it).