The husband stood on his sodden living room carpet, surveying the devastation around him. “When my wife saw this, she was in floods of tears,” he told a reporter, then smiled unhappily at his choice of words.
For it was flood water at unprecedented levels that had forced this couple and hundreds of others to flee their family homes.
Last month was the wettest February in Britain since records began 158 years ago. The country was deluged by an average of 209mm of rainfall, 237 per cent more than normal. Over 3,300 properties were evacuated.
On three successive weekends, storms named Ciara, Dennis and Jorge delivered such a vast volume of rainfall that 15 rivers recorded their highest-ever levels, flood barriers were overwhelmed, drivers had to be rescued from semi-submerged cars, trains were delayed by landslides and 70mph winds caused flights to be cancelled or planes diverted.
“Having three such widespread extreme rainfall events in the same calendar month is exceptionally rare,” said Dr Mark McCarthy, head of the National Climate Information Centre.
He added that recent research had contributed to a growing body of evidence that climate change had increased the likelihood of extreme rainfall. His remarks coincided with a study by Cardiff University, which found that increasing numbers of people considered climate change the most pressing issue facing the UK, second only to Brexit. In a survey of 1,400 respondents, 40 per cent said they were “very or extremely worried” about climate change.
This was twice as many as in 2016. Sixty-four per cent felt that Britain was already feeling the effects of change.
Scepticism was much lower and many Britons were now mentioning heat waves as resulting from climate change, a radically changed attitude, according to the pollsters.
Prof Nick Pidgeon, one of the study’s authors, said that increased activism and media coverage had fuelled popular concerns. He said the study’s findings would be used to advise the government on the climate change issue.
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The Tooth Fairy is a fantasy figure in our culture. When a small child loses a baby tooth, he or she puts it under the pillow at bedtime. In the morning they find that the Tooth Fairy (mum, of course) has taken the tooth, replacing it with a coin.
That’s what happened to Malachi Justin, who received £5 (Sh645) from the Tooth Fairy and donated it to the Salvation Army along with a note saying, “I pray you get money to buy houses for everybody.”
News of Malachi’s gesture to provide homes for rough sleepers went viral in Ilford, east London, and sparked a massive fund-raising drive. Over five years, individual donations, gifts from charitable trusts and the provision of free land by a council totalled £5 million (Sh645 million) and paid for the construction of a hostel with 42 self-contained apartments.
The hostel was named Malachi Place and Malachi himself, now aged 10, was there last week to welcome the first residents.
The accommodation opened at a time when record numbers of people are homeless. Some 8,000 people are believed to sleep on the streets of Britain every night.
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Crooks should keep their heads down if policeman Andy Pope is around. For this community support officer from Redditch in Worcestershire has an uncanny ability to remember faces.
Last year, he spotted 406 wanted people, bringing his career total of suspects nabbed to nearly 2,000. In one case, he identified a robber from a photograph he had seen a year earlier and in another he recognised someone just from a mole on the face.
PC Pope said, “If you look at a picture enough times, there is usually something that sticks in the mind as distinctive. Maybe I can’t pinpoint what that is at the time but when I see the person in the flesh, it triggers that recognition.”
A photographic memory is one thing, but when it comes to remembering dates, Mr Pope says, “I’m useless.” He adds, “My wife has to deal with birthdays and anniversaries.”
More from the church bulletin board: Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married in the church on October 24. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
At the evening service on Sunday, the sermon topic will be, “What is Hell?” Come early and listen to our choir practise.
The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
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