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Cavendish bridge just hours before its collapse in March 1947

Flood damage: Former Derbeian Roy Lister took this picture in March 1947 just hours before the bridge collapsed

Roy Lister captured these flood pictures, in 1947, just hours before Cavendish Bridge collapsed. Here, Roy, now living in Bournemouth, recalls the occasion as well as Derby's 1932 flood and how they affected his family, including an uncle who lived on a leaking barge at Barrow-on-Soar.

I took these photographs, capturing the dramatic floods of 1947, just hours before Cavendish Bridge at Shardlow collapsed.

As far as I remember, I was on demob leave and, hearing that the Trent was very high, decided to go and have a look on my bicycle.

On my way home via the main Derby to London Road, between Shardlow and Elvaston, the water was running across the road about a foot deep and at quite a rate, so much so that I was worried about being swept into the deep ditch which I knew lay to my left as the flow was very strong in that direction.

Whether I returned to Shelton Lock via Aston or continued to Snelsmoor Lane is lost in the fog of time.

I was amazed later on hearing that the bridge had gone, effectively cutting Shardlow in two until the bailey bridge was put into place. This, of course, has now gone and a new bridge has been built further along the river, again dividing the village, leaving the Bridge Inn isolated.

The pictures reminded me of the terrible floods that occurred in the centre of Derby in 1932, if my memory serves me right.

This one was caused by the overflowing of the culvert under the Wardwick, which carries Markeaton brook through the town and out to the Derwent where the shot tower used to be.

The story at the time was that a tree had been swept into the culvert and further debris had collected on this, causing a blockage and making the water well up in the town.

There used to be flood markers in the alley leading to the market hall from the Corn Market by the Tiger Bar. The highest ones were around six feet deep.

There were pictures in the Telegraph of people canoeing in the Corn Market on rapids running down the slope. Bodies were reportedly washed down the streets, but these turned out to be tailor's dummies from Fifty Shilling Tailors and Burton's.

After the flood, the culvert was built round the ring road to carry the water to the river on the Nottingham side for them to worry about.

They had floods, too. I have seen Trent Bridge cricket ground under several feet of water. I well remember my relatives in Kegworth, Hathern and especially Zouch Mills, where even a thunder storm would cause them to move upstairs.

They were always prepared with piles of bricks to put the furniture on. Along the road there were things called stints, planked walkways on legs for people to walk on in times of flood, although where to I cannot imagine as villagers would be picked up by punt and taken to the edge of the floods to go shopping and then ferried home again.

My mother's uncle lived on an old barge chained to the quay at Barrow-on-Soar. He was a retired bargee and had always vowed never to set foot in his father's house at Zouch while his father lived.

It was very idyllic for us as children to go to Uncle Fred's boat for the day. The only snag was the boat did not float. When the water was low, it hung from chains and when there was flooding, it sank and uncle had to leave and find shelter elsewhere.

I always regret I never recorded his memories. As a bachelor he had no crew like other bargees, just well- trained horse.

Legging through tunnels must have been hard work as he only had one leg. He would have to take the horse over the hill and walk back to his barge. Then he would walk it through the tunnel, lying on a plank and walking along the ceiling.

Once, before the First World War, when he was loaded with coal, he was frozen in at Shardlow for days. He was only paid on completion of the trip and he had run out of money and food. All he had left was porridge oats and they were rapidly going down, as he was using them for every meal.

He was only a few miles from home but he couldn't leave the boat as the coal would have been stolen.

None had been delivered for weeks due to the bad weather and everyone was short. Luckily the weather broke just before he starved to death.

In his old age, he was amazed at the building of the M1. He used to say: "They tell me they are putting a new turnpike alongside the one that's there already. I hope they know what they are doing."

Life was very different for him. A long trip was going to Loughborough and the only travelling he ever did was by barge. One year, I took him and my parents to a caravan we had at Barmouth. On the way, we went through Newport, Salop, and when I told him the name, he said: "So this is where it is. I only knew it was on the cut."

On the way home, after the week's holiday, we were driving along as it grew dark, when he commented that somebody had had a big job lighting all those little lights down the middle of the road.

I wonder what he would make of today's technology!

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County:  Derbyshire

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