Carole Peck (Nee Disney)
Memories of a 12 year old in the Canvey Island Floods 1953 - Part 5

"We stayed there about 3 weeks during which time my Dad went back to see how his business had fared. No one was allowed on the Island, but he jumped on the back of a milk float (presumably not a milkman's), and got home. Fluffy the cat actually swam across the road to him. The army or RSPCA had been feeding the animals"

Canvey Carnival Girls Life Brigade with Carole is at the back - The Mayor crowns the "Queen of the Silver Jubilee"

"Miraculously, no water had come in our bungalow. It was built on brick pillars and wasn't in the worst hit part of the Island. When we returned to the Island, things had changed. People you knew never came back. The sea wall was made higher and stronger, but it looked ugly with black interlocking metal piles which were hammered down by huge noisy machinery."