The Great Storm
By 1987 the regional structure was in place and we were looking forward to the formal opening of Joydens Wood, the first in a London borough. Unfortunately, this coincided with The Great Storm, the worst in 300 years flattening over 15 million trees in the southeast of England.
The 16th October 1987 was going to be a big day for the Woodland Trust. The Minister of State for sport, Colin Moynihan, was going to open our first wood in a London Borough – Joydens Wood near Bexley in Kent. We had planned the event in detail drafting in support from Grantham HQ and surrounding regions. We had engaged with local residents and newly recruited volunteer wardens. Stanley Edgcumbe, deputy Chairman, and his wife had been enticed out of the West Country, speeches written, activities planned, press and TV contacted.
Describing the night’s events, local journalist Bob Ogley pointed out that most people woke up to what they thought was their personal disaster to discover that it had affected a large swath of South East England from the Channel Islands to the Wash, demolishing 15 million trees.
We were short of news too, but our immediate task was to contact guest of honour and cancel the Joydens opening event. Colin Moynihan answered his own ‘phone in Whitehall at 8am. As communications improved we urgently needed to establish the extent of the damage to Trust property – only then could we consider the longer term consequences and costs.
In a case of an ill wind blowing some good the Trust was able to take advantage of the greater awareness of trees that the event created. Nevertheless, it took great dedication by Elizabeth Hamilton and the woodland management team to restore some of the damage done.