Thursday

by David Ridgway

  Very soon, those people who were flooded out of their homes, said that they wished to return to start their own clearing up. Where houses had been destroyed, the Government pledged to rebuild them irrespective of any insurance policies being in place. Removal of the rubble from destroyed buildings, tower blocks, offices and warehouses commenced very early on, as soon as there was access on the roads. Much was dumped alongside the river, bolstering up the river defences.

  During the first week following the disaster, new bricks were brought in for rebuilding, but the major drawback was a lack of available bricklayers. To combat this shortage, the Government arranged for every tertiary college across the country to release its students and tutors so that they could assist the emergency re-building work in the devastated housing estates.

  Underwriting all this activity and more was Alice’s consortium. Funds continued to flow in, when it was understood that the Government would agree to cover all the loans over a twenty-year period and committed itself to pay one half percent interest per annum on all the monies thus raised. It was, perhaps, inevitable that a proportion of these funds would be illegitimate, but there was an understanding from the very first day that the more urgent need for the capital outweighed such niceties.

  But the most extraordinary reaction to the disaster was the demonstration that the human spirit will forever overcome the most insuperable of odds. According to the old myth, Hope was the last item to emerge from the box when Pandora removed its lid. Out came war, pestilence, disasters and destruction, but following them all came Hope. And it is that Hope which enables all of us to work together to create a better future.

  Epilogue

  The weather, following the London Flood, became far more settled. It turned colder at the end of February, but by the end of March the sun was high enough in the sky to herald an early spring. The persistent rainfall over the previous summer and autumn gave way to light showers and with the coming of April and May, the weather turned warm and the crops in the fields began to grow. The summer was forecast to be warm and dry.

  In August, the railway bridge was finally rebuilt and the railway line from Liverpool Street to Southend was reopened. There was a ceremony at Liverpool Street Station and a commemorative journey to Southend. Martin Havers and his wife Jennifer were invited to attend in recognition of the work he and his family had done overnight following the Thames inundation. They graciously accepted and Jennifer took the opportunity to wear her new rubies. Their sons were, once more, back in their own homes, but Helen now seemed to be spending much more time in Essex. Both Jennifer and Martin were delighted with her blossoming relationship with Wayne.

  As the train made its way along the new track from Benfleet, Martin could see the contractors hard at work, raising and strengthening the sea wall. All their intensive work, on that terrible night, had finally been replaced by a new wall, with new sluices to regulate the outflow of water from the land. Martin’s improvised wall had kept the sea at bay with much greater success than anyone might have expected. So much so, he had decided to plough the flooded fields, once they had dried out, and plant them with grass. Much to his surprise and, indeed, to the amazement of all his neighbours, a decent crop had grown, on which his cattle were now feeding.

  “Jennifer! Look over there.” He pointed to the fields. “The cattle look really healthy and sleek in this sunshine. You would never believe that all those fields were flooded only six months ago.”

  “I know. What you did that night was remarkable and I am so very proud of you.”

  She slipped her arm into his and held him tight to her. A warm feeling of well-being flowed through them both and, once again, Martin reflected that he must be one of the luckiest people alive.

  The devastation of the housing estates, industrial sites, container ports, roads and tunnels had fed the media for many weeks. The tabloids, after the sensational headlines of the flood itself, had busied themselves with negative comments and stories about the Government and its apparent laggardly response to the disaster. To everyone’s surprise, however, the agreement between the government and the opposition to work together continued to hold firm for the six months following the disaster. A Joint Working Party was created to oversee the reconstruction of the Capital. At the top of the agenda for the Working Party’s attention was a determination to reopen the tunnels and bridges at the first possible opportunity. Initially, the Army helped with the survey of the bridges over the River Thames but, very quickly, it was replaced by teams from the Ministry of Transport.

  It was an enormous relief to learn the Thames Barrier was declared free of all damage. The Report from the Environment Agency, however, went on to remark that the sea surge had been so high, it had simply flowed over the top of the Barrier, enabling a massive inundation of water together with sea containers and other heavy debris to flow up the Thames, which had caused so much damage to the riverside infrastructure. The Report concluded not only that the Barrier should be replaced with a new construction, built higher and stronger and more in keeping with current sea levels, but also that the sea walls from East Yorkshire all the way round the east coast to the Thames Estuary, should be raised and strengthened.

  The damage in the housing estates was exacerbated by the tons of mud that had been dumped by the inundation. As soon as it became clear that the sea defences themselves were broadly undamaged by the flood, the local people who had been evacuated began to return to their homes. At first, the Joint Working Party felt that this drift back home should be discouraged until a more practical consideration suggested that the local people would be far more likely to get on with the job of clearing up their own localities and provide local protection and security, than could be offered by the Government or the Local Councils. In an extraordinary demonstration of good sense, the Joint Working Party set up a sub-committee to work closely with the Local Borough Councils. Instead of opposing the desire to return home, an active policy was put in place to encourage local residents to return and to assist in the drafting of the lists of people that were missing, buildings that were destroyed and roads that required clearance and renovation.

  At first, the plethora of all this information appeared to be overwhelming, but slowly the officials in the Local Councils began to make sense of it all and were able to direct the teams dealing with the clearances to the most appropriate places. The sea containers, buses and cars that had been randomly dumped blocking roads and railways, together with those in housing and industrial estates, were all removed within three weeks. The clearance of the demolished houses and tower blocks took longer because, in many instances, further demolition was necessary. Somewhat surprisingly, the Local Councils willingly sought the advice of their local people in order to save as much personal property as possible. It was also agreed, following advice and direction from the Environment Agency, to dump all the rubble from the many destroyed buildings alongside the riverbanks, thus acting as hard core for the planned improvement of the river defences.

  Slowly, the ‘quality’ press began to support the Government, as it continued to work in conjunction with the Opposition. By the spring, when reconstruction of the new houses commenced, even the tabloids expressed some surprise that so much was being done. The cooperation between the city and the Treasury continued to work extremely well. As soon as the final details of the financial arrangements for the raising of the capital loans had been agreed, the money started to be released against specific and logged applications. The capitalisation of the reconstruction fund, now known as ‘Re-build London’, originally came from many and varied quarters. At the very start, in those first few weeks before the compliance processes were put into place, Michael Varley was able to arrange for a substantial inflow of funds generated by and through Sebastian Fortescue Brown. This immediate access to cash was a boon to the Government, as it allowed for the clearance work to commence immediately. Michael realised, however, that this window, which was allowing him to receive and utilise some ra
ther dubious capital, would be very limited and by the middle of March, it was already closed.

  Sebastian Fortescue Brown, using his close links in the underworld, was able to raise several millions of pounds of illegal cash, which were washed through the system. The surprising and beneficial knock-on effect of this illegal movement of funds was to generate immediate employment in the flooded areas. Several new companies were formed specifically to employ the available labour from the Job Centres. A Government Initiative was also announced that these companies, working closely with the Home Office and the Treasury, would be allowed, for a limited period of time, to employ temporary labour without paying National Insurance. The drop in the rate of unemployment was remarkable and, again to the surprise of many people, a growing number of these temporary labourers went on to seek training, thus enabling them to move into more skilled and better paid areas of work.

  The loans to the fund generated by Sebastian were of a particularly short term nature and, of course, as soon as repayments were made the returned capital became completely legitimate. In a very private meeting between the Chancellor, Michael Varley and the head of The Securities and Investment Board, it was agreed that no action would be taken to review the legitimacy of these loans for the initial three months, so long as the necessary work of clearance and reconstruction continued to increase in intensity. After that amnesty, all the necessary checks as dictated by HM Treasury would be imposed, but Alice had been anticipating this crack down and her records were already impeccable.

  It was a massive task to clear the affected tunnels in the London Underground. To keep the public transport system working, the London Mayor introduced additional overground bus services and to enable these to run unimpeded, he banned all other traffic, other than reconstruction vehicles, between the hours of 7.30 am to 10.00 am and again from 4.00 pm to 7.00 pm. Although this was not particularly popular it was generally accepted in the spirit of getting London moving. The unaffected parts of the Underground were quickly reopened thus allowing access into the Capital from the suburbs.

  The bodies from the flooded platforms and tunnels were slowly cleared with the help of battery powered trains with specially constructed flatbed trucks. Identification became increasingly difficult as the bodies continued to decompose and finally local identification was abandoned. The mortal remains were initially taken to cold storage facilities all over the south east of the country and then further afield, until the problem literally overwhelmed all the available resources.

  Because the numbers of the dead were so vast, it was suggested that the bodies should be buried in large communal graves. Slowly it became apparent to the public that, however much individuals might be opposed to this, there simply weren’t the facilities to store the bodies pending identification. It was recognised, of course, that families and loved ones were more than likely to seek their lost family members and friends. To assist with this, therefore, a DNA register was created, which included the information as to the place and time the bodies had been found and extracted.

  The last bodies were removed from the Northern and Bakerloo lines ninety three days after the sea surge had devastated the Underground. As soon as the tunnels and the stations were clear, work began on the necessary renovation and, where necessary, reconstruction of the infrastructure, including its flood defences. It was already well known how vital a resource the Underground is to London. Transport for London was encouraged by the Government to increase its flood safety features as well as protection from terrorist attacks. This considerably lengthened the time taken before the Northern and Bakerloo lines became fully operational but, in order to comply with the public’s travelling needs, a system of rolling renovation was introduced whereby stations were closed in turn, but still allowed the lines to be used.

  Elsewhere in London, the necessary civil engineering surveys of all the bridges were quickly completed. Most were allowed to reopen to normal traffic within thirty days, but because of the damage caused by HMS Belfast, London Bridge itself was closed for much longer while it was substantially rebuilt. In August, the King himself reopened London Bridge with much fanfare and London was declared to be effectively ‘back to normal’.

  The bridge surveys demonstrated that the damage to Queen Elizabeth II Bridge was only superficial and it was re-opened very quickly. By the middle of March, the London Orbital Motorway was, once again, operational.

  Sadly, this was not echoed by the clearance and renovation of the tunnels. The ingress of water had damaged all the electrical cabling and the removal of all the vehicles and the bodies took far longer than was first anticipated. Indeed, a full ten weeks had passed before all the road tunnels were cleared and work could start on the necessary repairs and renovations. Between Dartford and Purfleet, the loss of the Dartford Tunnels was temporarily resolved by opening the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge to two way traffic.

  The rail tunnels had only suffered water ingress and after this had been pumped out, rail services were quickly restored. Work immediately commenced on additional protection for the entrances to all tunnels so that, in the event of a future failure of the river defences, the access to the tunnels would still be protected. The additional protection not only included higher protective walls, but also systems of automatic doors that could slide down and effectively seal the entrances. Failsafe facilities were also included to ensure that the trains would be halted, either inside or outside the tunnels, before the new sliding doors were activated. Similar failsafe systems were introduced at the entrances to the road tunnels, which were also protected with higher and stronger walls, in addition to the generally improved river defences. The cost for all these repairs, renovations and improved defences were underwritten by the Government but the initial work was completely dependent on the funds being generated by Michael Varley’s new finance company.

  David returned to school and buckled down to the necessary revision for his ‘A’ levels. To his relief, as well as the delight of his parents, his results confirmed his place at Sheffield University. He and Jackie continued to see each other during the spring and summer. Jackie was offered her place at Bristol University and, suddenly, they both realised that the coming September would be a big challenge to their relationship.

  As soon as the exams were completed, they were hardly out of each other’s company, even spending two weeks in Cornwall on holiday in a chalet. Although the weather was beautiful and the sun was hot, they were unable to ignore completely their forthcoming separation. Slowly, David became increasingly withdrawn and Jackie, noticing this, became falsely jolly. Neither had the experience to recognise that both desperately wanted to remain together but were unable to work out how to make this happen. The desire for instant results and resolutions, so common in the young, is not a suitable training ground for impending separation. Both realised that they were growing apart, even though neither wanted this to happen, but neither was able to talk about it and to propose any satisfactory solution.

  On their return to London, both fit and tanned, David’s mother immediately noticed the new distance between them. David was withdrawn and spent an increasing amount of time in his room. For her part, Jackie sought out her mother and tried to talk with her about her unhappiness. Annabel, however, did not immediately appreciate how deeply saddened her daughter was becoming. Instead, she put it all down to the forthcoming move to Bristol and all the changes that would follow.

  Jackie and David celebrated their exam results together, but although the evening started with all their friends at the tennis club, slowly and steadily the evening changed and, for them, it became increasingly sombre. A wrong word here, an inappropriate gesture there and the gulf inexorably widened between them. Suddenly there was no laughter between them, no secret smiles, no touching, nothing. Two days later, after spending an agonised and sleepless night thinking it all through, David texted Jackie suggesting that they should meet at the Costa Coffee where they had met all those months before.

  Des
perately hoping that the spark might re-ignite, she agreed. As before, David was sitting at the back in the secluded corner when Jackie arrived. It was a cold, wet day for the end of August and Jackie was dressed exactly as she had been on that exciting day back in February. He stood up as she walked towards him and they kissed each other on the cheek. David bought a latte for her and an Americano for himself.

  “How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m just finishing all the packing and stuff before getting off to Sheffield.”

  “Thought you might be. I’m doing the same.”

  “Jackie?” David looked at her. “What’s wrong with us?” He watched as her eyes began to fill with tears.

  “I don’t know. I’ve thought and thought, but I just don’t know.”

  “I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about you, about us. I don’t want us just to drift apart and not be friends. We’ve seen and done too much for that. I love you so much and I will always deeply cherish the times we have had together.” His voice caught as he saw the tears slowly falling down her cheeks. “But I know that we have moved apart over the last few weeks and, if this isn’t working, it would be wrong of me to try to find ways to bind us closer together. I don’t know why this has happened, but it has. I still love you and I do want you to stay my friend, but…”