PURELY by chance, memories of a sad and traumatic incident from my own childhood were graphically reawakened recently while I was researching in the Evening News bound archives.

I was again looking up details of the record Severn flood of 1947, and chanced upon reports of a hurricane which hit Worcester, just a couple of days before the river started overflowing its banks so dramatically in late March.

I imagine a lot of older Worcester citizens will have forgotten all about the hurricane which proceeded the 1947 floods.

The Evening News of March 17, that year, under the headline Hurricane's Trail of Havoc, reported that the gale force winds had been "the worst in living memory" and had inflicted "terrifying experiences on many local people.

"The city's streets are littered with thousands of broken slates, tiles and even chimney pots. For a time, Worcester was almost isolated because of trees blocking city and country roads, and many 'phone wires were down. Citizens also had to search hurriedly for candles last night as the electricity supply failed over a large area of Worcester."

The Evening News reported that several men, women and children had been killed as a result of the hurricane across parts of the West Midlands, though, fortunately, there were no reports of any deaths in Worcester.

However, as I know from personal painful experience, there was to be at least one tragic consequence.

The front page of the Evening News of March 17, 1947, carried a photograph of a gaping hole in the roof of 184 Bath Road, Worcester, which at the time was the home of my parents, my grandmother, an aunt and me, then aged nine.

The hurricane blew down the tall chimney and gable end of the neighbouring house, No.182, and sent a flurry of bricks crashing through the roof of our family home. Several fell on to the bed where my 90 years-old grandmother, Mrs Julia Grundy was sleeping. She had been blind for some years and naturally suffered great shock together with a lot of cuts and bruises.

I vividly remember rushing into her dust-filled bedroom and seeing a pile of bricks on top of her. My aunt, Miss Lottie Grundy was sleeping in the same bedroom, but none of the bricks fell on to her.

The Evening News highlighted their "lucky escape," but what was never reported was that three weeks later my grandmother died, never having recovered from the shock of the incident.

Fortunately, my aunt suffered no ill-effects - in fact, she lived to be 102!

Though that night is indelibly etched on my memory, I had forgotten exactly the month and year it happened, and had intended searching in the Evening News bound archives to find the precise date. I thought it had been in either 1949 or 1950, so imagine my surprise when I came across it in the March, 1947, editions!