Thursday

by David Ridgway

  Thursday

  David Ridgway

  Austin Macauley Publishers

  Thursday

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Copyright Information

  Synopsis

  Preamble

  Chapter 1Monday – Ten Days to Go

  Chapter 2Tuesday – Nine Days to Go

  Chapter 3Wednesday – Eight Days to Go

  Chapter 4Thursday – Seven Days to Go

  Chapter 5Friday – Six Days to Go

  Chapter 6Saturday – Five Days to Go

  Chapter 7Sunday – Four Days to Go

  Chapter 8Monday – Three Days to Go

  Chapter 9Tuesday – Two Days to Go

  Chapter 10Wednesday – One Day to Go (Day)

  Chapter 11Wednesday – One Day to Go (Evening)

  Chapter 12Thursday Morning

  Chapter 13Thursday Afternoon

  Chapter 14Thursday Evening – Before High Tide

  Chapter 15Thursday Evening – After High Tide

  Chapter 16Friday Morning – Before Dawn

  Chapter 17Friday Morning – at Dawn

  Chapter 18Friday Lunchtime and Afternoon

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  David is a graduate of the University of Life. He had a variety of jobs, always in selling, before starting a career in financial services. He has served as a magistrate and a local borough councillor, before being elected the Mayor of Kirklees in 2012. Married with three grown-up and successful children, David is now retired, giving him time for his grandchildren, his garden and his writing.

  Dedication

  To my wife, Karen, for her support over the past 44 years and Jeanette, for her unstinting encouragement, proofreading and advice.

  Copyright Information

  © David Ridgway (2020)

  The right of David Ridgway to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781528978118 (Paperback)

  ISBN 9781528978125 (Hardback)

  ISBN 9781528978156 (ePub e-book)

  www.austinmacauley.com

  First Published (2020)

  Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

  25 Canada Square

  Canary Wharf

  London

  E14 5LQ

  Synopsis

  MAIN THEME

  In February sometime in the near future, a big storm comes across the North Atlantic with a record-deep, low-pressure system. The hurricane winds push the sea southwards down the North Atlantic and into the North Sea, as well as bringing snow to Scotland and north-eastern England.

  A second, equally low depression has raced across the Atlantic, but further south, past the Azores, before moving north-east up the Bay of Biscay and past southern Ireland. This is causing gale-force winds to blow eastwards, pushing the sea up the English Channel.

  Neither depression can progress because of an anti-cyclone over Western Europe, which has been causing deep frosts from Holland right over to Russia.

  The southern depression is centred over Oxford and the northern depression is centred 200 miles to the north-west of Stavanger.

  In addition, it is season for the spring tides.

  Early on the Thursday morning, the tide begins to flow. As high tide is reached, isolated flooding occurs in Devon, Hampshire, Northern France, Belgium and Holland. There is also some coastal flooding on the Yorkshire coast, East Anglia, Essex and the Thames Estuary. The surge up the River Thames is broadly held by the Thames Barrier, but the height of the tide breaks all records around the southeast coast.

  As the tide starts to ebb, the westerly wind up the Channel seems to intensify, as does the southerly wind down the North Sea. The effect of this is that the tide does not recede for the next 6 hours and early in the afternoon, the tide begins to flow once more.

  The Thames Barrier is breached and a massive wave of water flows up the Thames and this tidal surge is noted even beyond Teddington Lock.

  MAIN STORY

  David Varley is an A level student, aged 18. He first predicts this weather event but is ridiculed by his teacher and his father. His father, Michael, works in the city and has been called to an overnight conference on Wednesday, scheduled to return Thursday evening.

  David has a girlfriend, Jackie, although the relationship has been drifting of late, caused by the enforced necessity to revise and the distance between their homes. David’s mother, Sarah, comes from West Yorkshire, but no longer works for a living. Instead, she is involved with local community and charitable groups. Her parents, Christine and Robert Sykes, live in Huddersfield.

  Because London is at threat, David goes to find his father to bring him home. He contacts Jackie and, together, they travel up to London.

  CHARACTERS

  David Varley.

  Michael, his father, a broker in the city.

  Sarah, his mother.

  Jackie Bleasdale, his girlfriend, dark-haired, slight, pretty and provocative. Her parents are Annabel and Kevin. He is a chief superintendent based at Scotland Yard.

  John Dickinson, his pal at school.

  Christine and Robert Sykes, his maternal grandparents in West Yorkshire.

  OTHER CHARACTERS

  Mr Smith, David’s science teacher at Richmond Academy.

  Martin and Jennifer Havers, who farm in Hadleigh, Essex on the Thames estuary. They have three children Charlie (and Paula), James (and Megan) and Helen. They live at Thatched Barn Farm. The children have moved away. James is practical, Charlie is not.

  Fred and Dinah Shemming. He is a fire officer on the Isle of Dogs. They have two sons.

  Rajinder Singh, the owner of a corner shop in Poplar.

  Alice works for Michael Varley.

  Andy Greene, a cabbie based in Kennington. He is a widower and has a lucrative side-line hobby, photography.

  Sebastian Fortescue-Brown, a hotelier in Kensington.

  Betty is his chief cook and bottle washer, married to Jack the hotel’s handyman.

  Tim Watson, hotel’s accountant.

  Milton Pryde, a West Indian driver on the Underground. His girlfriend is Pamela.

  WPC Elizabeth Drury works for Chief Superintendent Kevin Bleasdale.

  Preamble

  There can be no doubt, looking back, that it really happened on Thursday. On Wednesday, still no one believed that it could happen and by Friday, of course, it was all over.

  There had been years of media build up, following the news in 2018 that the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica was showing signs of instability and retreating at an unprecedented rate. Of course, the doomsters had been predicting global warming disasters for generations. And, more recently, they had added other immediate disasters to their joyful list: economic collapse in the Far East, AIDS and population migration from Africa, Covid-19 and political unrest throughout Europe.

  Everyone was massively over informed. We all knew that something might happen, but surely not in o
ur own backyard.

  The winter had been unusually long and unpleasantly wet. The previous summer had been poor with very few consecutive days of sunshine. Naturally, the farmers had complained about the harvest, but no one really listened to them because it had all been said before. Anyway, the farmers still had their big Range Rovers, so things couldn’t be all that bad, could they?

  Surprisingly, Christmas had been clear, sunny and cold giving everyone hope that the New Year would show an improvement. Any improvement was long overdue after all the autumnal rain.

  But Mother Nature isn’t like that. She’s real contrary when she puts her mind to it and she had put up with far too much and for far too long. Yes! We were foolish to believe that the weather would improve. By the second week in January, the rain was back. The land was already waterlogged and those two weeks over the Christmas and New Year holiday had hardly had any effect on the high level of the water table.

  Depression after depression swept in from the Atlantic. Rivers burst their banks and football matches were postponed. The transport system began to creek under the pressure. Everyone was depressed.

  Despite the scientific journals predicting that the collapse of the Thwaites Glacier and its near neighbour the Pine Island Glacier will raise sea levels by at least a metre, except for some very broad comments in the quality press, there was little coverage. An international team of glaciologists was despatched to that remote part of Antarctica in late 2018 and their early reports indicated that the retreat of both glaciers was already irreversible. Each subsequent year, there was a slight but measurable rise in sea levels and around the world the predicted frequency of devastating storms was unfolding month by month.

  By Tuesday in the third week of February, everyone was feeling miserable, well accustomed to trudging to work through the incessant rain. The false smiles and false hopes of the weather forecasters then turned serious as they told us of an even deeper depression which promised high winds and even more driving rain, especially in the south and east of England.

  And they were right!

  Coupled with the annual spring tides, the first specific depression arrived at just the wrong time. It deepened drastically, causing the westerly gales to intensify in the Channel. Structural damage was reported all along the South coast, trees were blown down and local power cuts added to the confusion.

  Then, early on Wednesday morning, the tide began to flow as normal. Being a spring tide and backed by severe gale force winds, the television news programmes were able to show some spectacular sights of waves breaking over sea defences. Rather more seriously, there was flooding in the low-lying coastal towns, the worst hit being Weymouth. We should have realised something was amiss when the tide didn’t really go out. By low tide in London at ten o’clock on Wednesday morning, a remarkable amount of water had not ebbed away as normal. Mind you, not many people noticed because the weather was so awful that most had gone to work with their heads bowed down and their umbrellas turned into the wind.

  But it was on Thursday when the real problems began. The tide had turned about an hour before midnight and begun to flow back in. The low depression was now centred over Oxford. Very unusually, a second depression had crossed the northern Atlantic, past the northern tip of Scotland and was centred off the western coast of Norway near Stavanger. This caused severe southerly gales in the North Sea, which following the intensifying westerly gales in the English Channel, created a swift and intense build-up of sea water. The coastline of Northern France, Belgium, Holland and Denmark bore the initial brunt.

  By high tide in London, scheduled at half past four in the morning, the sea had already breached the sea walls in parts of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. The Thames Barrier had already been activated to cope with the high tides on the Wednesday, but this did little to help the situation on Canvey Island, out in the Thames Estuary. However, the high tide came and went and the concrete seawalls around that strategic island had held out and everyone breathed a little easier.

  The news bulletins at last began to report with some accuracy on the growing difficulties in East Anglia. As the people awoke, they were told of flooding in Holland and along the Channel coastline. All ferry crossings were cancelled, because of the gale force winds. With the passing of the high tide, the danger was expected to recede like the sea water, but the Environment Agency advised that the gale force winds were expected to remain and even to intensify so much so that the next high tide, just after 5.00 pm, there could be severe flooding. People were advised not to leave home or travel, except in cases of absolute emergency.

  Scotland, meanwhile, had experienced exceptional snowfall, with enormous drifting in the fierce northerly gale force winds. There had been many disruptions to the power supply. By mid-day, as it was becoming blindingly obvious that a massive weather calamity was unfolding north of the border, the news bulletins announced that all major communication links with England had been broken. But the weather pays no heed to manmade national boundaries and the excessive snowfall, just like Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745, extended as far south as Derby and Nottingham.

  Low tide in London on Thursday morning was scheduled at about eleven o’clock. The effect of the easterly gales in the channel, however, had been to force the sea eastwards and this had restricted the natural ebbing of the tide.

  As the tide flowed back in, the build-up of water on both sides of the Channel was immense. The channel ports were inundated and thousands of acres of land were flooded, particularly in northern France and Belgium. There was immense disruption to transport and power supply. In the North Sea the seawater, being forced southwards by the second depression off Norway, met the unnatural build-up of sea water that had been unable to flow away when the tide should have ebbed down the English Channel. A sea surge was created about 10 feet in height and travelling at around 200 miles per hour in a southeasterly direction.

  As the surge met the continental shelf off Holland, it slowed down very quickly, but its inherent energy created a wave, rather like a tsunami, of some 50 feet in height.

  The centuries-old Dutch dyke system was simply overwhelmed as incalculable millions of tons of seawater inundated the polders and low-lying farms. The coastlines of northern Germany and western Denmark were also severely flooded. These disasters were soon followed by the sea defence systems being overwhelmed around the southeast coastline of England. From Norfolk down to Essex, the surge simply flowed over the seawalls.

  By midday, the nuclear power stations Sizewell A and B and Bradwell had all ceased operations. Following the advice of the Environment Agency, their safety codes had been activated and the power production had been rendered safe.

  Across the country, however, the National Grid was struggling. With the loss of much of the network in Scotland, the Grid had been overwhelmed and by ten o’clock in the morning, virtually the whole country was experiencing power cuts. The landline telephone system came under considerable pressure and the railway service became intermittent. The last news bulletins to be issued advised the public to stay calm and wait until the water receded, after the high tide had passed. The Environment Agency had given this advice more in hope than expectation, of course. It was certainly lacking in detail.

  The hurricane force winds continued to sweep up the Channel and down the North Sea, before joining forces and moving eastwards across northern Europe to wreak considerable structural havoc throughout northern Germany, Poland and even as far as western Russia. The rain was now spread in a belt from Iceland and Scotland in the north, through Ireland and down to the Bay of Biscay, Southern France and Northern Spain.

  The sea surge made landfall in Holland at just after one o’clock GMT. It continued to flow in both directions along the European coastline. It entered the Thames Estuary at about half past one and travelled westwards up river at about 20 miles per hour. As the riverbed shelved, so the sea surge had slowed, but the inherent energy created a 40-foot wave over and above the increased amount of water that was
already in the flooded river. Behind it, the tide continued to flow and, unbelievably, the water levels continued to rise after the passing of the wave.

  Famous landmarks simply disappeared; others could be seen as islands, appearing isolated in a brown swirl of dirty water. Much of Tower Bridge stood proudly above the surface, but many older tower blocks had simply collapsed and their foundations were washed away by the scouring pressure of the water. There was no sign of the London Eye, but the Royal Standard still proudly flew over the roof of Buckingham Palace giving hope to all those who could see it. St James’ Park was completely flooded. The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben were marooned like a darkened cruise ship, surrounded by water, debris and floating corpses.

  During the evening, the depressions started to fill and began to drift away to the east. The wind slackened and, finally, the rain stopped. The clouds began to rise and small gaps began to appear. High Tide came at five o’clock in the afternoon, after which, the water in the Thames and the floods on both banks, began to recede. With such an enormous amount of water forced into so small area between the east coast of England and continental Europe, the outgoing tide would drain off the surface of the land very rapidly, bringing further calamitous disasters.

  Chapter 1