THIS week in Down Memory Lane we look at the memories flooding back about the deluge Thurrock suffered on the night of January 31, 1953.

The memories are still strong and many have been recorded on the new Tilbury & Chadwell Memories website.

In conjunction with the Tilbury Riverside Project and Thurrock Museum, we will be having an exhibition in Tilbury Library to coincide with the anniversary of the flood.

On January 31 we have planned guided walks along the riverside between the Tilbury Riverside Activity Centre and Tilbury Fort, with an evening talk by me on the floods, coupled with memories of the times by those who witnessed it.

In the note book of the Coalhouse Fort look-out, stationed in a wooden hut sited on top of a concrete Great War period search light emplacement just outside the main gates of Tilbury Fort, he records: “Every minute after midnight it became worse.

“I kept the beam of my signal lamp played on the water below the station, as I knew if the wall did give way the station would collapse.

“I saw the bodies of two horses floating in the water – the normal spring tide here is never more than 16ft, it is now 6ft above that.

The look-out was marooned for some time cut off from land. The water overflowing appears to have mainly come in from Bill Meroy’s creek, and enters Tilbury Town from the east, while other flood water comes in through the docks.

My photograph taken the following morning at Civic Square shows council boats being used to help rescue of Tilbury people.

Tickets for the planned events will be on sale in Tilbury Library and through the Thameside Theatre box office.