"At about 7.30pm on the evening, a farmer
came into my house with the news: "the sea is in", and I ran
out to find, within about 150 yards of the house, the sea on
the road, a mass of dead earthworms floating about, and
terrified hares and rabbits swimming in or galloping before the
flood. I waded to the mill man's house and at my knock he
stepped straight out of his door into the sea. We rescued some
people by boat from the upper windows of their house and got
some of the inhabitants of the village away in a lorry down the
road to the north. Two of us wading through the sea down the
road ahead of the lorry, holding the centre of the road by
keeping an eye on the tops of the reeds that showed in the
dykes on either side of us. Except at one gateway there
was no great current, but we had the feeling of complete
ignorance as to how high the water would rise. Luckily a bright
moon helped us for we could at least see what was
happening.
There was luckily no loss of human life and
little loss of farm animals. Horses and cattle, which in many
cases were standing out for hours belly-deep in the sea with
nothing to eat but dead floating rubbish and no fresh water to
drink, took the ordeal with great calmness and showed no
inlination to stampede. All freshwater fish were at once
destroyed and floated in thousands on the water; there was of
course an invasion of the inhabitants of the sea. The only
creatures which appeared quite unaffected were the eels, whose
habit of migrating from sea water to fresh and back again made
them indifferent to what had occurred.
For the next three months until the half-mile
breach in the sand-hills was sealed, we lived a strange
existence on an island at the mercy of the sea, with the sea
water rising and falling according to tide and to the force and
direction of the wind. The normal drainage system of the
country was completely upset. The water on the land rose above
the level of the walls surrounding the broads and rivers and
flowed over the walls into them.
We tried, whenever the water dropped an inch
or two in the rivers, to assist this natural process by cutting
slits in the walls bordering the rivers and broads to let some
water off the land, but constantly had to re-close these slits
whenever the water in the rivers rose again. All such work was
really wasted and it was useless to do anything before the
breach was closed".
Mrs Joyce
Nudd.
Two of my brothers went outside to get their
cycles. they came running back indoors shouting "the sea is
over". We all went outside and saw it coming down the road like
a white foam.
We had an old man of eighty-two living next
door with his daughter. His bedroom was downstairs and he was
very reluctant to go upstairs, but did so when he saw the water
coming indoors. We took some bread and water upstairs as we
didn't know how long we would be there. My father sat by the
bedroom window and saw our chickens, rabbits and bunches of
reed being swept along by the water. we could also hear our
furniture bumping together downstairs.
We were all very frightened and wondered what
we would do if the water came too high. We were lucky it was a
full moon, and at 1.30 in the morning we heard voices. Four men
rowed round to the bedroom window - they said they were afraid
we had panicked and drowned. They got the old man and his
daughter out first, then us. We had to sit on the bedroom
window-sill and drop into the boat. the men then rowed us to
the mill and along the road to the first
house.
The centre of the village was not flooded. We
spent the night at Horsey Hall and next day went to Sea
palling, travelling to Waxham by boat".
Mr. E.G. King of Hall
Farm
My wife was just getting our children ready
for bed. Mr Thain, my farm foreman came to our house to ask if
he could borrow our car to go to Catfield to warn the head of
the Sea Breach Committee of the danger of flooding. He took the
car, but at first we took no notice. Then I thought I had
better go out and see for myself. I came back realising Mr
Thain was right. I started our lorry and was going to take my
family and some neighbours to the next village. we set out but
had not got very far when we were stopped by lapping water and
had to push the lorry back. we then got out a higher lorry and
carefully drove on to the neighbouring village - only the tops
of reeds and gateposts guided us along the way and prevented us
from driving into ditches. The sea kept coming across the
marshes but was not ebbing. we went back several times in boats
for villagers, the last at 2.30am".
Mr Roy Randell
He was travelling by car to Winterton but
only got as far as the Hundred Stream, boundary of the village,
when the water came sweeping up to him. Mr Randell spoke to a
reporter at the time: "I tried to
make myself comfortable inside my car, but water came up. The
rear window gave way and the car was full of water. I got on to
the roof but nobody seemed to see me". Mr Randell stayed on the roof of
his car all night.
