For a few weeks in February 2014 our village was the centre of media attention. The Thames burst its banks and flowed through the Main Street. Life took on a surreal quality. The media descended on us, the army and the fire brigade pitched in and ev...
One of the frustrations we experienced through the flood was that we were somehow out of sight and out of mind. For all the dramatic pictures of Slough Road and the village centre only fourteen houses in the village were flooded internally. It could be that some didn't report they'd flooded internally because of insurance worries but of the fourteen houses that flooded nine were in our road. Datchet if you remember has a history of flooding. It's a once in a generation thing but houses in the centre are built to resist it. They have steps up to their doors and raised thresholds. The ground floor of our houses on the other hand were garages or converted from garages and had no such resistance and of course we were down a slope. A parish official later suggested the houses are on what was once the village duck pond.
The triangle of houses we live in can't be seen from the main road. They are behind the garage and off to one side. The straight bit of the road is higher than us and from the main road would have looked like dry ground although the top of the road, where it met Slough Road was so deep the Parish Flood Warden later confessed he hadn't come to see us because and I quote, 'the water was too deep'. In his defence the troops hadn't been provided with wellies or waders and nor had anyone else. We were better equipped by our good friends than most of the professionals were!
Anyway we were consistently ignored. Messages to the Customer services in Maidenhead or the Parish Council offices the other end of the village didn't seem to get through. The fire brigade and later the army made their way through to us but we didn't see a parish official down our road from beginning to end. They all made it to the end of the road when the royals arrived but that is another story.
It eventually got too much and, armed (or should that be legged?) with our precious waders we set off for the Parish Offices wading thigh deep through the worst of the water to get there. I happened to get there in the midst of an official visit by the Leader of the Council, the Chief Executive and senior management team. Slightly embarrassing as I work for the Council and should technically have been at work but I was past caring at this point. There was a lot going on so I wasn't the centre of attention to start with but I addressed myself to the army officer who appeared to be in charge and seemed somehow to draw everyone's attention. I made an impassioned plea for our street and the need to get some support to us. Shortly after Sandra went in and buttonholed our ward councillor.
The message eventually got through and we began to get much needed delivery of sandbags through the school.
This is what the entrance to our street was looking like at the time.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
MORE PICTURES FROM 'PHOTO STREAM' TO FOLLOW. PLEASE REMEMBER TO VOTE.
