Published in Windlesora 11 (1992)
© WLHG
The Winter of 1947 was very harsh. It seemed to snow continuously during January and February. I was just a young boy, 12 years old, and growing up with a large family meant that we had many great snowball fights.
The snow lingered on the ground through the winter and the rise in temperature as spring came caused a thaw. The banks of the Thames at Windsor started to disappear under the water and the sound of the river rushing down to London was frightening to a youngster. The river overspilling in winter was quite common, but it was very noticeable that many parents were agitated about it this year.
One morning, while we were playing in our street (Grosvenor Place, now buried under Ward Royal), a number of friends from nearby ran up and told us excitedly that the Army had arrived at the bottom of their road, near the Windsor County Boys School. We all dashed down there in anticipation of some unusual experience. The troops were stacking sandbags around the entrance to the allotments that were alongside the school. My father had one of them and we were very curious as everything looked normal.
Soon, a trickle of water hit the barricade of sandbags and we were told that the small stream running alongside the allotments had burst its banks. We watched enchanted as more troops arrived and stacked the sandbags two and then three deep. The barricade become too high to see over and we were not allowed to climb on to it. We played around this new formed dam for a couple of hours, when we noticed water squirting through at different levels. The troops moved everyone back and suddenly there was a loud roar and part of the dam collapsed and there was a waterfall at the bottom of Oxford Road.
People who lived in the road started to panic and put barriers round their front doors, but the children laughed and played in the ever growing puddle that squirmed its way down the road. I ran home to tell my parents about this amazing story but my father said that we were a quarter of a mile away and it was pointless to put up any protection. He said the water would never reach Grosvenor Place. I was disappointed! Sure enough, as darkness approached the water had reached only halfway up Oxford Road and stopped. I envied all our friends who could paddle outside their front doors.
I went to bed that night a little sad. I woke in the morning to a sound I had never heard before and opened the bedroom window to look out. I could not believe my eyes! Our street had become part of the River Thames. Nearly three feet of water was flowing at a tremendous rate down the street. I rushed to the top of the stairs and found a few of the steps at the bottom were under water, like a shipwrecked boat. How exciting!
As time wore on my father had to wade across the street to the grocer to get provisions. It all became strangely boring. Being imprisoned in our own house seemed to take all the earlier happiness away. We watched all kinds of flotsam go by; some was very sad, like dead pets. There was some amusement as one of our friends paddled past in an old tin bath. I went to sleep that night hoping it would all be gone in the morning and terrified that it might get even worse.
On the following day an Army DUKW came along the street and stopped by our downstairs window. We collected some clothes, and had to climb across tables under the water and out of the window. We were taken to an army barracks where many residents slept on the gymnasium floor until accommodation could be found, while meals were provided at the Royal Free School.
It took two weeks for the water to subside and I then went back with my father to find the whole of the bottom of the house had six inches of black slime on the floor. The furniture and some rooms were ruined. It brought home to me how our small pleasure at the beginning had turned into a nightmare.
James Ayres
Windsor Local History Group 