News Quilt goes missing in the storm of the century
The Great Storm of 1987 inspired former Goole Times journalist Steve Anderson. In his 124-page paperback called 'Growing up with Ginger: The Cat-lover's Book for Cat-haters', he based an entire storyline on a similar gale that brought chaos across Britain. We publish a much-abridged version of that tale…
It was illegal and dangerous. It attracted the wrong kind of attention from neighbours, many of whom were cat-haters.
And, as Quilt was about to discover when she did it again for the final time, climbing the roof of Kingsway Cottage to torment the resident bat population was not the smartest of moves - especially when hurricane-force winds were battering much of Britain.
Faced with gusts powerful enough to overturn cars, workshops and garages, Quilt was fortunate to survive an ordeal that would earn herself a mention in the list of dead and missing that seemed to lengthen every day. As natural disasters went, that Atlantic depression would be ranked alongside the very worst that the UK had ever experienced.
"Dozens killed, widespread blackouts, motorways blocked. Factory chimneys toppled, greenhouses wrecked, schools closed," the Goole Times exclaimed. "Town hall tumbles, bridges breached, hundreds homeless. In one Howdenshire woodland alone, 90 per cent of the mature oaks, sycamores and elms were felled by gusts exceeding 120 miles-an-hour. From Gowdall to Gilberdyke and Garthorpe to Givendale, the devastation has been immense."
Television presenter Pete 'Earl' Eavy was lost for words when the gale struck. Halfway through a bulletin, he began to choke when hit from behind by stage scenery that had been dislodged by a partial collapse of the studio roof. His face turned a vivid purple, his eyes rolled in their sockets and his hair stood on end as gold and silver pulses of electrical energy bounced between his skull and his fingertips. Pete's life was saved by a quick-thinking technician, who removed the set of partially-swallowed false teeth that had been blocking his airway. Who the dentures actually belong to has never been established, so, if you're missing some molars or incisors, contact Mr Eavy at 2-30, Openwide Drive, Victoria Dock, Soregumby, DR1 LLS. If the teeth remain unclaimed, they will be auctioned off to raise money for the canine-lovers' charity "Plus A Hound", which was set up by an anagram-loving meteorologist.
Pete's was one of many extraordinary accounts to be featured in newspapers, but not a single column-inch was devoted to Quilt, who went missing just hours after BBC weather forecaster Michaela Fisk had warned of the impending threat to much of Britain. The cat had made her way to the top of the cottage, where many of the ivy-covered ridge tiles provided an ideal home for a long-established colony of Pipistrelles. She was just a whisker away from the nearest bat when she was struck by a ferocious blast of air that sent her plummeting 30 feet…and on to a tarpaulin sheet draped over the back of a pick-up truck.
Dodging fallen branches and other debris that littered every main road and byway, driver Malcolm Atkinson made his way to the Madhyamaka Buddhist Centre near Pocklington, where his load of bricks was needed for restoration works. He sought sanctuary in the building's main meditation room, unaware that he had been "transporting" a feline passenger who was to remain concealed until spotted by a passer-by the following day.
It took another seven weeks before Quilt was reunited with her brother, Ginger - thanks to new technology and an energy source 93 million miles away…
* You can read a detailed account of the two cats' adventures in 'Growing up with Ginger: The Cat-lover's Book for Cat-haters', which can be ordered from the Goole Times, from any bookshop or from more than two dozen websites worldwide. Costing £6, it has the ISBN 1846854180.
Published on 25th October 2007 in News.
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