TV-am Great Storm 1987 

TV-am came under a lot of criticism for it's news service not being up to standard. But let's be fair, there's no denying the quality of delivering one of the biggest stories of the decade in a Bugs Bunny jumper.

I remember that night/morning in the TVam studios in Camden. It was one of the station's best ever efforts in its all-too short existence. And the lion's share of the real nuts and bolts work of getting the programme to air that night was done by a bunch of reprobate, scruffy freelancers: John Cookson, Gérard Williams, Simon Walton and some other biker-jacketed itinerant whose name escapes me. A much lauded programme at the time, but not a word of thanks from the high-ups, who were all tucked up in bed while it was going on. But we were mercenaries and they did pay us handsomely so: Happy Days!

Thanks so much for uploading this! I often wonder if it wasn't for people like you that these clips of nostalgia could be lost forever. They truly are pieces of history. All the best for 2022.

I can't believe that Trish Williamson passed away 10 years ago this year (2007). Still deeply missed.

I remember this happening even though I was only 3 years old at the time. I remember my mother tucking me into bed and said there's gonna be a storm tonight. I remember sometime later I could hear the wind rustling badly and other things which scared me as I was trying to get to sleep. When I woke up in the morning my mum took me into the garage and showed me the damage the storm had done. It had blown down part of our garage wall.

Joe Bugner in the Frank Bruno report was in that awful Street Fighter film with Jean Claude Van Dame, but he redeemed himself in 1988 winning the IBF Heavyweight title before retiring after his last fight and only ever title defence which he won. I was 7 at the time and went without electric for a week. We spent the time cooking food on the Camping Gas stove, played charades and had the radio on all the time!. Toast was cooked on the log fire. Thanks so much for posting this, after the storm recently, I’ve been trawling RU-vid to see what TV reporting on the storm was like that I missed in 1987!.

Very rude of the chief inspector to fart down the phone at 26:48!

i remember the great storm, i was 12 at the time, we moved to Wales from Essex 10 months before, I don't remember TV-AM using the Thames Studios, going off subject a bit I do remember one day back in 1992 at 6:00am there was a technical fault with the switching at BT Tower, for about 15 minutes or so some area's got a colour bar test card with THAMES-3 superimposed on it, HTV Wales was one of the regions affected but HTV West was not affected,

I remember the storm very well and that same morning school was canceled. Interesting times. Under the circumstances, TV Am did a good job keeping things going with a skeleton crew.

Living in Essex, this happened on a Thursday night and school was shut the next day. By the Friday morning it was relatively calm. Saw trees with 30CM trunks twisted and snapped half way up. Tiles, glass, overhead power lines arcing in the road place looked like a war zone.

Kay Burley, before she was a viper.

I wasn't born until 1989 so I didn't live to see this. The first time I remember any knowledge of it happening is when the BBC filmed the 10 year anniversary episode Lifasavers in 1997. We recorded it on VHS so must have it somewhere. Parents were on holiday in Spain during the great storm. Came back to find nothing damaged at the house (Hertfordshire) - so no gripping stories from me!

I love the Weather Girls warning. If you moving around in the dark please be careful. If they were in the dark they would not have the telly on dear.

I was living in North London at the time; I woke up with electricity, but nothing on the TV! I did manage to retune and find a very faint image from somewhere else that let me know what was happening. Multiple trees down on the walk to the Tube, which wasn't running, so that was my meetings cancelled for the day!

Remember attempting to get to work on my bike, never got there, too many fallen trees blocking the road, I was 17 at the time.

9:42 - Not broadcasting in London meant that the Crystal Palace Transmitter was off air, as there was no power in London, and so Crystal Palace would not work until power was restored by mid morning.

You’ll notice it’s 7:27am and I’m afraid we can’t bring you Popeye this morning! 😂

Jeff Clarke at 43:10… He was the newsreader for BBC South East at one point and Meridian before that. Like Richard Keys, he was also on Sky Sports.

Good old TVAM - strikes and storms couldn't stop them. They found a way to keep going as long as they could :)

The commander presenting the weather forecast is so bizarre! It’s akin to WWII announcements.

I was only 2 years old when this storm happened. My mother told me that my dad was on a night shift. He worked for Group 4 Security and was on a night shift that night from 10.00pm - 8.00am, and he said it was horrible weather and very frightening. Mum remembers hearing the winds howl through our avenue - thankfully mum said the power supply remained on all the time - they must have been one of the lucky regions to have kept power on?

I remember seeing this when I was very young. I remember the storm too, we took the dog for a walk when it was just getting going and then sat around the fire in the dark after the power went out.

And to think the only studio Thames could give them was the continuity studio. Good old TV-am news, pictures of reporters holding a telephone!

Its so surreal. Live TV as the storm is still happening

My father's employer, in October 1987, issued a statement commending all those who went to work in spite of the aftermath of the Great Storm and told those who had not come to work because of the aftermath of the Great Storm that the day they had not turned up for work would be deducted from their annual leave entitlement.

I remember as a 10 year old when the wind was so strong. The power cut of around 3.30am. Didn't go school either until Monday. If I remember 10am power was restored

I swear we had a Haden

I walked to work from Bethnal Green to South Audley street, we had electricity. Park Lane resembled a park and Hyde Park looked grim.

interesting how he said 'dozens of people killed'...................

My mum was 7 when this happened, I’ll have to ask her if she remembers this

Where I lived in New Milton,we were cut off for 17 days. So even though I am 49 years of age this is the first time that I have seen this coverage. All of the Power Lines were down and all of the Local animals,including our dear late Sheepdog called Shep had to be put indoors to stay safe! TV am [In this instence] did a good job! Thank You for this video. Do you have the same moring coverage from BBC Breakfast Time? GOD BLESS

A school friend of mine played crazy golf in her garden, the ball smashed her dads new greenhouse window. That night the storm started and the whole thing crashed down 😂Needless to say she wasn’t popular for a long time.

If you still have this footage to hand, I'd love to see and maybe upload the commercial breaks.

Proper professional performance from TV-am. They should bring it back in it's original format

I think this was the time when our U.K. climate shifted to milder winters and warmer summers. Until 1987, snow was more common and colder summers from time to time used to be frequent. The Great Storm of 1987 did seem to usher in a change. I remember Christmas Day 1987 in London, and it was very sunny and very mild.

TV-am was not broadcasting in London at this time, as the Crystal Palace transmitter had no power to it. So in a strange situation, TV-am was being seen outside of London. This was done by the magic of the post office cable network and the still working microwave network which fed TV-am to all regions.

I miss the simple factual presentation of the news. No fear culture, no sensationalism, no polarisation. Please get us back to this style.

39:38 love how she hangs up still talking to him lol

Is the first part of this emergency TV-am / Thames broadcast available anywhere please?

I was 6 living in hawkhurst Kent we had 11 days with no power can you imagine that happening now a days

Storm Eunice could have similar traits to the October storm.

“Old folks’ home” 😂

I notice a few seconds after going back to Gordon Honeycombe, there's a non-sync cut and the clock disappears, I'm guessing that's the feed to the VTR being cut from what was coming from Thames to TV-am's own internal feed? From what I've read before, I think Thames kept feeding TV-am to the network that morning and Richard Keys stayed there in case power was lost at Camden again- which of course it was at the end of this video. I'm guessing Thames weren't making a recording of what they were outputting (I guess things were hectic and they had other things to worry about that morning), so all we have is this which TV-am recorded during the times they had power. Unless someone happened to be recording from home that morning. I remember in the 00s when Moving Image used to have a very detailed searchable database of their TV-am holdings, with absolutely LOADS of video clips, not just of programme content but also including several ad breaks and at least one of the IBA startup captions, and it was interesting to note what particular feed was recorded to the archive tape varied from day to day- sometimes it was an as-broadcast recording with the clock and ad breaks there, some times it would be a raw feed with no clock and staying on the studio or a VT clock during the breaks (one of the clips they had to view was Michael Parkinson talking to Raymond Burr during an ad break!), and there was at least one clip where we got the audio of the adverts but the vision from the studio, there didn't seem to be a consistent way of doing it throughout the station's life- even the clips they put up right until the end in 1992 varied from day to day in this regard. I bought a VHS copy of the broadcast from the day I was born from them back before the archive was farmed off to AP and they still dealt with the general public (sadly, I no longer have the tape.... throwing it away is a decision I regret), and that particular one was as broadcast, with the clock and all the ad breaks (and TV-am colour bars popping up after they went off air).

I was 19 floors up in London watching the destruction unfold beneath me,saw the lights go out across London and couldn't even make a cuppa tea 👍

An old folks home ??? You couldn’t say that today ! It’s called a carehome !

I remember this I got day off school

Well, I'd say Her Majesty was rather lucky not to have had to go through that storm.

24:30 - Then as now, nobody really wanted to talk to Kay Burley. 😄

I was 7 and remember this night in Norfolk.

hi it is Scott here you said you have edited out the elton John interview which is said is a big part of the program so my question is did you upload the elton John interview which was in this program as I'm such a massive fan of elton John thank you also it was a sad time in 87 my friend Up in hospital have a time

Interesting that on this newly uploaded video, which has some off air recodings from that morning, things keep going after the point where your video cuts off: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-J6vnzw946oE.html Sadly whoever was recording kept stopping and starting and switcing between ITV and BBC1, so we don't have all of the 8:15-9:25 section of TV-am, but there is around 40 minutes of it, and it doesn't look like Camden dropped off air during that time. Clearly, whatever reason the TV-am archive recording ends wasn't due to the power going down and taking them off air. Possibly the tape ran out, but there people there were too occupied with keeping them on air that nobody put on another, or maybe power issues took out the VTRs but they were able to stay on air? There isn't a non-sync cut when Thames starts up either, which does suggest TV-am was being fed through them for the entirety of the morning.

Compared to today, there are very few video items, you have to imagine the news.

We had no electricity until 2.30 that afternoon.

This could have been the very first experience of rolling news

They're at Thames Television at the start

So TV AM used Thames Television studios for some reason. Why? It couldn't have been due to power outage as TV AM returned to their studios at Camden Lock and were running from their normal set I presume by generator power, so I wonder why they decamped to Thames for the first hour or so?

Up in Scotland we have one of these storms every year or so but they are never reported. Sad really ☹

I don’t suppose there’s any chance of getting a copy of the footage from 6 o’clock to 645 by any chance is there?

Watch out for a young Adam Boulton reporting from Vancouver.

How big was them telephones?

Everything goes to pot, but for some reason the adverts were still to hand!

I was only two years old, so don't really remember the storm. My mum tells me we were cut off till midday

Even 30 years ago Kay Burley had no personality

Storm Ophelia (2017) is Similar to the Great Storm of 1987, Which is Red Weather Alert

i was there

any joy with the first part? Ta

What’s with the phones...

Presumably Fred Truman lived in Camden...

Weather person saying if your walking around in the dark at home.... er if that's the case you wouldn't be seeing TVam or the weather report.

13:21 is this where Operation Yewtree originates from?

nearly 30 years ago I was 17

BANTER

Martin Frizzell husband of Fiona Phillips

38:18 women's look if I ring them lol

Trish Williamson... No relation.

A real shame the uploader chose such poor sound quality.

(1:55) Well, brother, just you wait a few years and then try and tell me again just how much you want things to get back to normal again. ;)

06.45.45 Richard's demonic hand signal

80s

25:27 there's no what this morning? it sounds like she said "popeye" as in the cartoon character. why in the world would a morning show air cartoons

The guy looks weird... just plain weird

Kay Burley was attractive?

Bloody Fiji, sod em

I died that night when a chip shop collapsed on my cardboard box Which I had been sleeping on and I now haunt RU-vid with my comments.😬😠😠😠👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻