‘Isle of Grain was cut off for 12 days’
Kim Tomlin’s relatives came to stay at her Chatham home for a weekend from Essex and ended up spending the week as they couldn’t get their car off the drive in Scotteswood Avenue.
She said: “Their boss didn’t believe it was so bad. They went around getting supplies for neighbours and I had to walk to work and back down Maidstone Road – it was an ice rink!
“I had to launch myself from railing to railing and still slipped over several times.
“I remember someone riding a horse along New Road Avenue, Chatham, as there was pretty much no traffic.
“The only people who got in were those of us who walked. I remember that good feeling of strangers talking and helping each other.”
The Isle of Grain was cut off for 12 days meaning doctors and midwives could not get to expectant mums.
When village policeman Michael Dale got a call from the maternity unit in Chatham saying Debbie Marsden was about to give birth and it could be a breech, he commandeered a helicopter owned by The Sun newspaper.
“They had flown a crew in to report on the snowfall, and the mum was whisked away to hospital where she had son, John.