Floody Hell
Hello.
This is a photo of me on the front page of today's Guardian. I'm the one in the yellow hat.
A Getty images photographer waded out in four and a half foot high flood water to the island our house is on to take the photo.
We are ok, please don't worry, the house was built high enough to currently not be in critical danger to our belongings, we still have electricity for now and we have a slightly wobbly canoe to get us out when we evacuate. There are so many others not as lucky.
The Guardian photo was taken at about 5pm on one of the worst days of flooding my village has seen in 60 years. The river is up 2.5 meters above where it should be and the only safe way to get to my house is by boat.
As the photographer made his way to our house he would have passed about 80 homes - many bungalows, all barricaded in with sandbags, planks of wood and plastic sheeting. The water is over the main road, it's gushing through the drive ways of houses and turning everyone's gardens into make shift council paddling pools that look like they haven't been cleaned for a decade. Two days ago every resident in wraysbury and beyond was on the streets, some helping carry sandbags, some helping carry people. Yesterday the politicians turned up, they spoke to very angry locals and did their best to try and look genuine. Mostly, they got in the way. Today, the road near my house is deserted, except for the occasional evacuee returning to see the damage, or Army truck rolling past looking to see if there is much else they can do. There isn't.
My family seems to have been one of the human interest stories for the past three days. From our own house alone, we've had two major newspapers sit in our kitchen drinking coffee, my mother was interviewed live from our kitchen table on the BBC news channel. We've appeared in the Times, The Guardian and even the Daily Mail. The Sun Newspaper sand bag delivery van (yes, you did read that right) has gotten closer to our house in the deepest of floods than the milk man ever bothered. We've already had requests from ITV to do a piece about the toxicity of the flood waters from our garden, except they couldn't actually get to the house but its OK, the Getty images man came back today to photograph the RSPCA evacuating our cats. Mostly, he got in the way.
Up the road, (and I mean that literally) Channel 4 and Sky news have interviewed the more vocal of flood wardens, Tory Councillors, Green Peace activists, Defense Secretaries and even Ed Miliband. Oh and the One Show just went live from the Baptist Church.
This has been an odd week.
Being in the epicenter of a major disaster zone and a political quagmire all rolled into one still doesn't feel real. I, like the rest of Wraysbury, feel as though we have spoken to every journalist in the country. One press guy even said that the broadsheet newspaper photographer would have been 'Sorry not to have photographed me' when he came to interview my parents. As though I was supposed to be flattered. As though the story of my parents, being the second generation who've lived here for nearly 30 years wasn't interesting enough and they needed a photo of a young woman to lift it. Sadly for me, and feminism as a whole, my photograph is now on the front page of a national newspaper. I can never know what caused the picture editor to pick that photo, I just really, really hope it was the hat.
I have however seen the human spirit at it's most wonderful. The generosity, kindness and fortitude of strangers united by a post code has defined the word 'overwhelming' for me - I want to write a Thank You card to the whole of Wraysbury, not to mention the friends and family further a field. So many are worse off than we are, it would be rude of me to complain. So, as a river dwelling family who have lived on water pretty much since birth we've decided to try and find as much humour in the situation as we possibly can. There are people here who have a genuine right to be upset, we don't feel we're one of them.
Hence my Facebook photos and 'News' updates that people seem to be enjoying. When you watch a load of Army lads turn up to an under water village in desert boots, when you have your photo taken only to find out it's for the Daily Mail or when your mother doorsteps Ed Miliband and he all but runs away scared the next time he walks past her, it's criminal not share that gold. There are a lot of residents here and in all the following villages that are having one of the worst times in their lives, and not once does that thought leave my mind, but there is a common thread in the feeling of people here; yes it's totally shit, and yes the next few months look bleak, but if I see a bus with the number plate '476 WET' like hell am I not going to photograph it and laugh.
So with nothing more intended than to give some light relief to those who are having the crappiest of times, here are some pics that probably wont make the front page - p.s. You can thank my dad for the blog title, classic dad joke.
*NB Not a real Giraffe
This is a photo of me on the front page of today's Guardian. I'm the one in the yellow hat.
A Getty images photographer waded out in four and a half foot high flood water to the island our house is on to take the photo.
We are ok, please don't worry, the house was built high enough to currently not be in critical danger to our belongings, we still have electricity for now and we have a slightly wobbly canoe to get us out when we evacuate. There are so many others not as lucky.
The Guardian photo was taken at about 5pm on one of the worst days of flooding my village has seen in 60 years. The river is up 2.5 meters above where it should be and the only safe way to get to my house is by boat.
As the photographer made his way to our house he would have passed about 80 homes - many bungalows, all barricaded in with sandbags, planks of wood and plastic sheeting. The water is over the main road, it's gushing through the drive ways of houses and turning everyone's gardens into make shift council paddling pools that look like they haven't been cleaned for a decade. Two days ago every resident in wraysbury and beyond was on the streets, some helping carry sandbags, some helping carry people. Yesterday the politicians turned up, they spoke to very angry locals and did their best to try and look genuine. Mostly, they got in the way. Today, the road near my house is deserted, except for the occasional evacuee returning to see the damage, or Army truck rolling past looking to see if there is much else they can do. There isn't.
My family seems to have been one of the human interest stories for the past three days. From our own house alone, we've had two major newspapers sit in our kitchen drinking coffee, my mother was interviewed live from our kitchen table on the BBC news channel. We've appeared in the Times, The Guardian and even the Daily Mail. The Sun Newspaper sand bag delivery van (yes, you did read that right) has gotten closer to our house in the deepest of floods than the milk man ever bothered. We've already had requests from ITV to do a piece about the toxicity of the flood waters from our garden, except they couldn't actually get to the house but its OK, the Getty images man came back today to photograph the RSPCA evacuating our cats. Mostly, he got in the way.
Up the road, (and I mean that literally) Channel 4 and Sky news have interviewed the more vocal of flood wardens, Tory Councillors, Green Peace activists, Defense Secretaries and even Ed Miliband. Oh and the One Show just went live from the Baptist Church.
This has been an odd week.
Being in the epicenter of a major disaster zone and a political quagmire all rolled into one still doesn't feel real. I, like the rest of Wraysbury, feel as though we have spoken to every journalist in the country. One press guy even said that the broadsheet newspaper photographer would have been 'Sorry not to have photographed me' when he came to interview my parents. As though I was supposed to be flattered. As though the story of my parents, being the second generation who've lived here for nearly 30 years wasn't interesting enough and they needed a photo of a young woman to lift it. Sadly for me, and feminism as a whole, my photograph is now on the front page of a national newspaper. I can never know what caused the picture editor to pick that photo, I just really, really hope it was the hat.
I have however seen the human spirit at it's most wonderful. The generosity, kindness and fortitude of strangers united by a post code has defined the word 'overwhelming' for me - I want to write a Thank You card to the whole of Wraysbury, not to mention the friends and family further a field. So many are worse off than we are, it would be rude of me to complain. So, as a river dwelling family who have lived on water pretty much since birth we've decided to try and find as much humour in the situation as we possibly can. There are people here who have a genuine right to be upset, we don't feel we're one of them.
Hence my Facebook photos and 'News' updates that people seem to be enjoying. When you watch a load of Army lads turn up to an under water village in desert boots, when you have your photo taken only to find out it's for the Daily Mail or when your mother doorsteps Ed Miliband and he all but runs away scared the next time he walks past her, it's criminal not share that gold. There are a lot of residents here and in all the following villages that are having one of the worst times in their lives, and not once does that thought leave my mind, but there is a common thread in the feeling of people here; yes it's totally shit, and yes the next few months look bleak, but if I see a bus with the number plate '476 WET' like hell am I not going to photograph it and laugh.
So with nothing more intended than to give some light relief to those who are having the crappiest of times, here are some pics that probably wont make the front page - p.s. You can thank my dad for the blog title, classic dad joke.
*NB Not a real Giraffe
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