Oh won't you write me a letter frae West Cumbria: Nr 1

Some of you will know that we flit between the Western Cape and West Cumbria. I know strictly that this particular posting isn't strictly to the point of the Greytonian blog but it is about Climate Change and that's affecting us all.

The World News  (BBC and Sky anyway) for the last 2 weeks or so has been a continuous following of the floods in West Cumbria in particular my home town of Cockermouth. We live about 8kms out of Cockermouth and were saved the worst of the storms. It's a lot like, when we are back in the Western Cape we live 8kms out of Greyton and also seem to miss the worst of the storms.

Cockermouth is a lot like Greyton though bigger more analagous in size to Caledon. But the aspect - nestling in the mountains at the confluence of 2 rivers and the dependance on tourism and hospitality, arts, crafts, history, market, and dormitory for the commercial parts of West Cumbria. As I said the scale is different - there are at least 30 restaurants/pubs/hotels and on the main 2 streets getting on for 60 independant small traders - gift shops, galleries, grocers, card shops, hairdressers, artists, bookshops ... you get the picture.
Imagine then the whole centre of Greyton - the main street and 200 metres either side engulfed - a roaring torrent (60kph I'm told) of water 3.5 metres deep. The cause of the deluge - a 1 in a 1000 years storm.

Cast your mind back to the Greyton November storm of 2008 (1 in 50 years) and the 2007 November storm (also a 1 in 50 years!). The bridges and culverts and fords were washed out back then - in fact there are some still washed out. We had friends from Cockermouth staying with us in Greyton during the November 2008 floods and they now blame us for the flooding in Cockermouth.

The main area of Cockermouth now looks like a war zone clean up.

They reckon that it will be 2 years before things are back to normal. I am very pessimistic.

Imagine again, that Greyton couldn't trade for 2 years and that the inhabitants would have to live out of hotels in Caledon or Botrivier for that time. I think it would be the end of the place.

So far the community is strong - the war time spirit prevails. I'll try and keep up the news feed.