1987
The wind was different. It was hammering the windows, with a force that resembled dead bodies being thrown against the panes of glass. Like the wind was trying to enter the building, and was in some mammoth struggle with Architecture as a concept. The elements were reminding us of their power.
The next day I packed my school bag, without watching the news to check the weather. Whatever storm had occurred was over. It was my first year in secondary school, and in fact my second month there. Coming from Woodstock upstate New York to London, I was notably studious and careful not to be late. My then American accent and hand-me-down clothes already placing me at a severe disadvantage. I walked out from our two bedroom Victorian flat on Fitzjohns Avenue, and began to walk down to Finchley Road to get the tube.
There was something strange and eerie about the atmosphere that day. There was something wrong. I do not remember any sound. It was like the city was in a vacuum. The street was strewn with leaves and small branches but I thought little of it as I descended Netherhall Gardens. My usual entrance into Maresfield was barred by vegetation but for some reason my 11 year old self didn’t register it as an issue, just a hiccup in my progress. I continued down the hill and took the second left. Huge 300 year old plane trees had fallen across the road. No other person was present. Rather than turn back, I simply climbed over the fallen truck of the largest tree which was perpendicular to the street. It’s trunk was about 3 and a half feet high on its side. (I was still thinking in inches then - a habit I still struggle to lose). I continued on my way to the main road. Nature had spoken but my habits refused to shift. I had to get to school. There was no alternative.
I reached the main road. Numerous small brick walls, erected at the end of World War II in the area’s post Blitz reconstruction, had been toppled. The tube station was firmly closed, and metal shutters stood shut across its entrance. Already the traffic was enormous. People seemed confused and frustrated. A line of 30 people were clustered at the bust stop. Looking right I saw a number 13 Routemaster approaching. When it arrived at the stop, it was already completely full. There was room for two people. I was barely over 5 ft and some how jumped the entire line of angry commuters and slipped to the spot next to the open entrance. Holding on, this was always my favorite place on the bus. Open to the elements, this was the location for hardened Londoners who would jump on and off between stops at their leisure. I held on to the moving vehicle, essentially a platform open to the elements. It always felt like a game. My speed and smallness got me on to the bus which quickly moved on.
The rest of the journey to the West End was dystopian. There was no space for anyone to embark and the driver seemed to be move through a weird landscape of broken walls, smashed windows, and fallen trees. The structure of the city had fallen apart. The hurricane - which is what it turned out to be - had revealed the fault lines in urban monumentalism. The city’s permanence was clearly a facade. The landscape revealed on that grey flat morning was battered and strange.
When I got to school - a girl’s only institution I had gotten a scholarship to on Harley Street behind Oxford Street’s wall of department stores - the school secretary greeted me with disbelief. Why on earth had I come? Clearly the school was closed. How were they going to get me home? The city was in gridlock, public transport was down. A girl in my class, who I barely knew, was being collected by her chauffeur and somehow the school persuaded them to take me for the ride. We were in the car for almost three hours (the walk back would have indeed been shorter).
The “Great Storm of 1987” had taken place on October 15. The winds were up to 100 miles per hour. 15 million trees were blown down. 18 people were killed. I heard stories of scaffolding coming loose and flying into people’s bedrooms. Trees falling onto parked cars. That weekend we went to Hampstead Heath and almost the entire avenue of trees leading into the large wild park were down. My sisters and I discovered pieces of 18th and 19th broken plates and crockery in the exposed roots - originally planted with the trees for irrigation. Little ghostly archaeological remnants of history.
For me the experience of going to school that morning was a fundamental one. As in a JG Ballard novel, the strength and bravado of the city was clearly revealed as a lie. I knew nature was stronger. We were all living on the edge of Vesuvius. The volcano would always blow. It was just a matter of time.
Francesca Gavin, Vienna, 2021
FRANCESCA GAVIN