‘THEY WERE SENDING RAF H

It was a monumental event and school closures, and saw and petrol sta But while there may be para this wasn’t a pandemic - it wa struck Kent 35 years ago this

For many in Kent the year 1987 is remembered for the Great Storm, when winds of up to 110mph left a trail of destruction across the county and four people dead. Its long-standing infamy is why fewer recall the weather phenomenon that struck nine months earlier during one of the coldest winters on record.

The snow started to fall on January 11 and didn’t let up for four days, with temperatures plummeting to a staggering -20C.

Cars were buried, roads became impassable and hundreds of schools across Kent were forced to shut as the blizzard left the county at a standstill.

Supermarkets ran low on food amid delivery delays and panic buying, and petrol stations were left without fuel as the supply chain ground to a halt.

Hospitals were forced to cancel nonurgent operations and a number of elderly people were admitted suffering the effects of hypothermia.

The temperature dropped so low that even the sea froze in Herne Bay for the first time since 1963.

Several towns were cut off and practically all train services were cancelled; one journey from Charing Cross to Ashford took an incredible 13 hours.

The extreme weather came as a shock to many as it followed what had been a relatively mild start to winter but harsh winds from Siberia moistening over the

North Sea created the conditions for a snowstorm like few before it.

Angela Maybourne, of Staplehurst Road, Sittingbourne, has more reason than most to remember the early hours of January 13.

At 3am, the mum-to-be’s waters broke and she was faced with the daunting task of making it from Hartlip to Maidstone Hospital.

“We rang the hospital and they told us to call the police,” she recalls.

“They arranged for a snow plough to meet us at Key Street traffic lights, as it was then.”

Wrapped up in a hat, coat and blankets, off they went with Angela’s parents in tow.

“The snow plough took us up and over Detling Hill and then a police car met us at the bottom, and we had a police escort to the hospital,” Angela remembers.

“We had to phone the police station later to say whether it was a boy or a girl.”

Holly was born at 1.15pm that day, but the drama did not end there.

As he drove home from the hospital, dad Simon Baker came off the road and had to be dug out by Gurkhas.

The late Tom Castle, who farmed at Petham all his life and kept weather records for more than 50 years, described January 1987 as a particularly savage cold snap.

During the big freeze he recorded a bone-chilling -19C, with the mercury

‘If we had something like that now, I think society would come to an utter halt. We’ve made ourselves more fragile as a society’

Former police officer Ashley Clark

not rising above -9C, even during the day, on January 12.

People making their way along Canterbury high street in the January blizzard Cars were buried under a mass of snow; people enjoying real snow on the slopes of the Alpine Ski Centre in Chatham; The community spiri out in force; Birds enjoy a small opening of water in Herne Bay

Great snowball fights were to be had across the county A helicopter takes supplies to the village shop at High Halstow

Deliveries still be carried out in a snow-covered Chatham high street

It was knee-deep in a lot of areas, including Chatham

Cars going absolutely nowhere in Shurland Avenue on Sheppey

A whiteout in the aptly named White Road

As much as 30cm fell in areas of Canterbury

Enjoying the snow in Rochester

For soldiers trained in the Arctic, the heavy snowfalls across Kent proved no problem; a novel way of getting about in Sheerness The snow hit all areas in the county

Snowy Wingham in January 1987 Queueing for milk and bread as supplies become short in Minster Road

George Poule took this shot of a snowcovered Sheerness. The traffic lights were working but there were no cars to be seen, except those covered in snow

Trying to keep farms up and running proved a hard task, with helicopters having to drop in animal feed

Getting on horseback was a method to make your way to the shops

A wintry, picturepostcard setting of Cranbrook in January 1987

Tonnes of snow needed to be shifted

There’s a car under there somewhere

Pupils in Ashford built an igloo