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Yesterday the death was announced of the actor Gorden Kaye, aged 75, star of the tv series 'Allo, 'Allo, while tomorrow sees the 27th anniversary of the Burns' Day storm of 25 January 1990.
The connection between these two events is that Kaye was injured in the storm when a plank of wood from an advertising hoarding crashed through the windscreen of his car near his home at Hounslow, causing him serious head injuries.
Gusts of 87 miles an hour were recorded in London. Many buildings had their roofs torn off, and cars were crushed by fallen trees. Docklands, then a major building site, was particularly badly hit as construction materials were flung about.
Although the winds were not as strong as they had been during the Great Storm of 1987, the death toll of 47 was much higher because the tempest struck during the day when people were out and about, while the Great Storm did its work at night. For more, see London's Disasters: from Boudicca to the Banking Crisis (Reaktion).
*19 January 2017 saw the 100th anniversary of London's Silvertown explosion, which killed 73 people. This article on the blast draws heavily on London's Disasters. https://wcclibraries.wordpress.com/
At least two people have now been killed by Storm Desmond. A 90 year old man was blown into the side of a moving bus in London, and another elderly man was swept into a river in Cumbria. Before Desmond, we were buffeted by Abigail, Barney and Clodagh
Until the last few months, only the very biggest storms got names in the UK - and those were unofficial ones, like the Great Storms of 1703 and 1987, the Burns' Day Storm of 1990, and the St Jude's Storm of 2013. Now, though, the Met Office has adopted the practice that forecasters in other countries have followed with major storms, and started giving them consecutive alphabetical names.
In the old days in the West Indies, storms would be named after the saint's day on which they appeared. Then in the 19th century, an Australian meteorologist started calling them after politicians he disliked. Next the authorities tried numbers, but this proved too confusing when there was more than one blowing.
During World War Two, clarity was essential, so US meteorologists went back to names - often those of a wife or girlfriend. Then in 1953, the US National Weather Service drew up an official slate of female names, which continued until the late 1970s when feminist groups protested, and the authorities agreed to alternate male and female names.
