The diary entry at the bottom of this page just says ‘Flood East Coast 31.1.53’. On January 31st 1953 there was a horrific sea surge which affected the countries along the North Sea causing huge loss of life. 2,551 people are known to have drowned, 1836 in the Netherlands, 307 in England, 28 in Belgium, 19 in Scotland and others at sea. In England 30,000 people had to leave their homes and 24,000 homes were damaged. The owner of this Prayer Book lived in Kingston Seymour on the west coast of England, a little village which had suffered many floods over the hundreds of years of its existence; there is a plaque in the church commemorating the devastating tsunami of 1607 which I am sure the owner of the Prayer Book would have looked at many times, particularly after the events on the last day of January in 1953.
This was a dreadful and awful event… but imagine if magnified a thousand times… that is what the people of the Philippines have suffered in Typhoon Haiyan.
Lois Elsden 