The Village That's Falling into the Sea

MUSIC: "On The Beach" by Chris Rea

I first came to Hemsby at the end of last year and I came here to

make a film about coastal erosion but that story dramatically changed.

On December 5th a massive coastal surge came down the North Sea

and hit the eastern part of Britain.

It was the worst seen in 60 years.

The lifeboat hut is literally tipping into the sea.

This place took a battering and my story became

about a resort fighting for survival.

OK, the back of the house has gone.

I've come back to find out how things have changed

and whether the people here can actually save Hemsby.

Hemsby on the east Norfolk coast

is a classic old-fashioned seaside resort.

Holiday-makers have been coming here for decades

but last winter it found itself at the centre of a seaside disaster.

This sand dune is all that's between the North Sea

and these houses behind me.

Where I'm standing, where I'm walking,

is all that remains of 183 The Marrams in Hemsby.

It used to be home to Jackie Connelly and her husband.

When I first met Jackie just before Christmas,

none of us had any idea what was about to happen.

RADIO: 'BBC Radio Norfolk.'

'Alex Dolan is here with the latest on the weather front.'

'The concern over the next few hours is the storm surge

'and it's being created by an area of low pressure...'

Every day Jackie Connelly dreads listening to the weather forecast.

What's predicted to happen tonight could literally change her life.

Jackie's home is perched precariously on a cliff top.

Over the years the sea has eroded away the sand dune it sits on.

A neighbour has already moved out, his house condemned.

Jackie is concerned her home could suffer the same fate.

How worried are you, living here?

Very worried, because we don't know what the next storm

is going to bring, you know? How bad it's going to get.

So, do you ever go to bed thinking, "My goodness, if we have a bad

"storm tonight, we may wake up in the night and the house is gone"?

We might be homeless tomorrow. That's what I think.

Just look how close Jackie's home is to the edge.

And it is not just her home here in Hemsby,

the whole resort is fighting for survival.

And when you get weather like the storms that blow up,

it's no wonder people here in Hemsby are really worried about their future.

There are no sea defences protecting the village

and they have been refused public funding to build them

so they're doing it themselves.

Salute, arms stretched...

The fear of losing part of the village has brought the whole community together.

As the storm rages outside, they've gathered for a fundraising evening at the pub.

It'll add to the £20,000 they've already raised

to pay for their own sea defences.

Lorna, the whole community seems to be behind this.

We are absolutely, 100% behind it.

We're having fun and raising money at the same time.

The community is dead set on enjoying

and raising money at the same time.

All the money raised tonight will go directly

into building new sea defences?

It absolutely will, yeah. Every penny.

But while we're filming in the pub,

outside the storm surge is making its way down the North coast.

The sea has burst through

in the Norfolk village of Wells-next-the-Sea.

The streets are underwater.

Just down the coast, the pier at Cromer is next to be battered

as waves engulf the beach and the prom.

25 miles further along at Hemsby,

none of us has any idea of the scale

of the storm heading our way.

While we're standing here

the lifeboat hut is literally tipping into the sea.

The high tide has chiselled away underneath the foundations

and it's literally tipping up as we're standing here.

So, this one here is nearly gone, is it, now?

'Jackie and husband Steve have been at the pub for the fundraising evening.

'They're concerned about their home.

'They've decided to go back to check everything's OK.'

We've just come along Jackie's road and the house next door,

which has actually been condemned anyway,

half of the house has gone, has disappeared

over the sand dunes tonight in high tide.

'We carried on to see if Jackie and Steve's home was still safe.'

-Jackie's just going into the house now with her husband.

-Oh, no! What?

It's really close, really close. Hang on.

-Everyone stop.

-What's happened?

-They're really close.

The back of the house is gone.

Don't get too close to the edge because that will be very unstable.

-Terrible.

-You can see the paving slab.

What are we going to do now?

SHE SOBS

-I can't believe this is happening to me.

-What's happening now?

-What are you doing now? What's happened?

-Well...

We don't know where...

We don't know because we're not prepared for none of it so...

Where will you go tonight? Is there somewhere you can go to be safe?

Well, there's only people who has offered us

somewhere to stay for the night.

It's absolutely heartbreaking for you to come back and find this.

I mean, we didn't expect it to go like this.

-Can we go now, please?

-Time is of the essence now.

People from the village have come down to help Jackie and Steve

move stuff out of their house before it goes over the edge.

They're grabbing anything they can and getting it out of the house.

The house just isn't safe.

Let's get the table out the door.

Come on, come on. That's enough now. You need to prioritise now.

What is most important to you, you need to get out now.

Seriously, now.

They now say that the house is not safe,

they can hear it rocking at the back.

Everyone's cleared of the house, everyone's out. That's it.

'Just as we go, we see the floor lifting.

'And what was Jackie's neighbour's house

'is carried away by the sea.'

-SHE SOBS

-Take yourself to the pub, come on.

Come on, darling. You'll be all right.

'The next day we returned to see the full extent of the damage.

'This is all that remains of the old lifeboat station -

'just a few bricks, the rest all washed away.'

In daylight you can see just how destructive the waves have been

and it's still so powerful this morning,

the waves are still crashing on the beach here.

This is as close as we can safely get to the sand dunes.

If you look over there you can see Steve and Jackie's house

now down on the beach,

and four other houses were lost last night.

Jackie, looking at it, I mean, this is just...

Yeah. That's the living room, that is.

Yeah, it was the living room.

-What time did it go over last night?

-We don't know.

I just can't believe that's your house on the beach.

-No, I can't believe it, either.

-This is devastating, Jackie.

-You and your husband have lost your home.

-Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, lost everything now.

'To make matters worse, Jackie and Steve believe they're not covered

'by their home insurance. They've been given temporary accommodation

'in a nearby holiday camp.

'A week later and work is busy going on to try to clear up the beach.'

Pictures of these houses have been seen by people all around the world,

but what most people probably don't know is that the sand dune

actually came to here. They lost 30 feet of sand.

And what's worrying is that more is predicted to go.

'What struck me was how everyone had pulled together that night.

'But what happened is not easily forgotten.

'Many are now worried about the future of their homes, too.'

-What's it like living here, Angela?

-It's scary.

It is really, really frightening.

Go to work in the mornings and don't want to come home at night.

This isn't home any more. It's frightening to come home.

Every night before I go to bed I get my torch out

and shine along the dunes to see if the dunes are still there.

We've got a short bit of dunes left and then our homes go.

And when our homes go, how much more of Hemsby goes with it?

'Half a year has now passed since the storm.

'People here still fear for the future.

'But there's something else, too -

'determination. This is a community that refuses to give up.'

Many people living here are right to be worried.

The UK coastline is constantly being monitored,

and predictions are made as to how things may look in the future.

For Hemsby, if their predictions are correct, in around 100 years' time

this row of houses behind me may not even be here.

They'll have been swallowed up by the sea.

'But Hemsby is clearly a place

'people can't help falling in love with.

'And they'll defend it to the end.

'People like Del Derby who runs the Two Way Cafe.'

Can I have some clean water, please?

-You like Hemsby, don't you?

-We love Hemsby.

-Nearly as much as you like your cod and chips.

-That's right.

'Del's a cockney and proud of it, too.

'But a trip to Hemsby as a youngster changed his life for ever.'

God bless ya.

This looks like I've rehearsed all this but I get this all the time.

No, I get it!

'He moved here 16 years ago and has been running the cafe ever since.'

Just put your money in the tip box after, I don't mind.

LAUGHTER I've been to Miami before.

I've been to the South... I've been all over the place.

Southend! But when I looked at Hemsby Beach, I just...

It was like climbing over a load of big mountains

and then you see this great big desert.

This is the best beach I've ever seen. Still.

Better than the Algarve.

OK, ladies, today's wedding...

When they're seated down, after the speeches,

we're going to be taking their meal orders.

'To survive, the village needs thriving businesses.

'Lorna runs the pub.

'Last time we met she was raising money for sea defences.

'But business must go on and today there's a wedding to prepare for.

'Like Del at the cafe, she wasn't born here,

'but soon grew to love the place.'

I love Hemsby. It wasn't always that way.

My father moved us from London in 1977

and I hated him for bringing me here.

-Really? You didn't like it at all?

-Not at all, no. It was so quiet.

So different from what I'd been used to.

I was 12 years old, but, you know what?

It's the best thing he could have done for me.

So, gradually you came to fall in love with the place, the people?

Absolutely. There's a charm about somewhere like Hemsby

where people say hello to each other, they welcome you in.

You're not afraid to look people in the eye.

There's plenty to do, and if you're in trouble,

everybody gets on board and they come and help you.

'Every day the coast is changing and eroding away.

'And one day there will be another storm.

'The last great tidal surge was in 1953.

'Hundreds of lives were lost along the East coast.

'Seven people died at Sea Palling, just a few miles north of Hemsby.

'As a result of the flooding, Sea Palling got defences,

'and more have been built since.

'The Government will only fund defences for places where the value

'of homes and businesses is high enough to justify the huge cost.

'Hemsby isn't considered valuable enough,

'so villagers are still trying to raise funds themselves.

'Lorna's come to meet an erosion expert.'

At Hemsby we've obviously got a lot worth saving.

We've got an 80-million annual industry there,

a lot at stake. Is there something we can do?

It's going to be very difficult.

One's got to recognise that this is a very soft coastline.

It's been eroding for the last 5,000 years or so and a lot of the cliffs

have been disappearing at an average rate of 1m a year.

That's a lot of land we've lost.

So, a variety of solutions have been tried along here.

We've used reefs, as we see here, we've got groynes, the sea wall.

We've got rocks put at the base of areas.

We've got our natural defences like the sand dunes.

So, yes, there are a variety of measures that we can put in place.

A lot of those are quite expensive.

This defence probably will cost about £65m.

And so at the end of the day

we've got to look at cost benefit analysis.

Now, what one's got to look at in the case of Hemsby

and other areas, like in the North Norfolk coast,

is the economic advantages versus the costs

of taking these various measures.

And so just putting a wall in front of everything

is one potential solution, but that destroys the nature of the coast.

It wasn't just people's homes that were destroyed by the storm surge.

Hemsby's old lifeboat station was also a victim.

I'm standing right where it was

and there's pretty much nothing to suggest it was ever here.

But we're not talking about a wooden shed -

it was a huge concrete building that was destroyed that night.

While we're standing here the lifeboat hut is literally

tipping into the sea.

The high tide has chiselled away underneath the foundations

and it's literally tipping up as we're standing here.

Dan, what do you remember about the night?

Well, on the night of the high surge, with the sea coming in, battering

the coastline, obviously the station at the time was being undermined.

And then, potentially,

the shed just started to lean and it just broke up in pieces.

-Just amazing.

-Could you believe what you were actually seeing?

The lifeboat station was huge, it wasn't a small shed.

Could you believe that it was being tipped into the water?

No, I couldn't.

You know, you'd need machinery to break something like that up,

and for the sea just to do it within a couple of hours and, yeah,

it was unbelievable.

I've never personally seen the sea like that before.

I've seen it bad but that was really bad.

There was waves probably 30, 40 foot in the air.

It's just...yeah, it's just dangerous.

Independent of the RNLI, the lifeboat's run by volunteers.

Typically for Hemsby,

the villagers raise the £30,000 a year

to keep that going themselves!

Fortunately the lifeboat and equipment was moved out

of the old building before the storm carried it away.

We're about 40 or 50 feet off the shore here at Hemsby.

What's quite hard to get your head round is that 50 years ago

there would have been a sand dune where we are. In fact, two or three

sand dunes have gone between where we are and what you can see now.

It's reckoned there were around 70 beach chalets and houses

that were here, that have just been lost to the sea.

So beneath where I'm sitting could have been somebody's home.

It's quite a thought.

'There's a long history of people losing their homes here.

'Del's family first came to Hemsby back in the early '90s.

'They loved the place.

'And his dad decided to buy a beach house overlooking the sea.

'But it wasn't long before things went terribly wrong.'

Believe it or not, our first place, which was about 20 year ago,

when we came down from East London...

My dad bought my mum one of these beach houses and it was situated...

-You just vaguely see the grass?

-Oh, yeah, poking out of the sand.

-That would have been another dune again.

-That was the dune?

-That's where it was?

-Yeah.

So, where we are now, then half again before you got to the sea.

Yeah. And when we got it, we was 25 foot away from the edge

and thought how lucky we are to have a beautiful sea view.

You know, I've run on this beach, I see seals in the water,

it was beautiful. I thought, "Bloody hell, this is so lovely."

And then in two, three days of high tides,

my mum's house, 20th anniversary, bosh, in the sea.

How long had you had the property before it went into the sea?

-Three weeks.

-Three weeks?!

-Ideal home.

And within three weeks, from being 20 feet away from the edge,

it was...it was in.

So, had it come back to here... It was on...

That's at least how much we've lost in the 20 years...that I know of.

She decorated it all, her curtains she made

and then just to see it floating away in the sea.

She was so proud, telling people that she lived by the sea.

Not by the sea, with a lovely sea view.

She'd look out her window...

Our kitchen window, that picture there, which was beautiful.

'Despite the fragile nature of the place, there are plenty of people

'who aren't put off by the threat of disappearing over the edge.

'This house, just yards from the sea, is on the market for £35,000.

'I bumped into Paul Attfield who's thinking of buying it.'

Not looking in too bad condition, is it?

No, it looks a lot sturdier than I was hoping.

Do you know how long it's been here?

-I don't, I'm afraid.

-Have they not said when it was built?

No, I think sort of turn of the century...

-is what I'm hoping for it...to be newer, obviously...

-Yeah, yeah.

..from my point of view. But it looks pretty watertight.

-Just wants some love.

-Are you looking to buy this as your main home?

No, I'm looking at more as a holiday home

and something to play with at the weekends.

But despite what's happening here? You've got coastal erosion,

coastal surge, houses were lost here.

And you're prepared to invest in this?

It's quite scary. But I think it'll be fun for the children.

-This is your back garden - or would be.

-Would be the back garden.

-I suppose the verge...

-That must be the boundary, mustn't it?

-Yeah.

Sort of a bit like Wild West.

What you're prepared to take and hang on to

and maintain sort of becomes yours, really.

If you bought this place, you'd be pretty close to the sea.

It's right there.

Are you still convinced it's the place you want to take a punt on?

Not 100% convinced.

But it's a flip of the coin and...

I think the risk is worth it for the pleasure I intend to get out of it.

So, yeah, just a definite flip of the coin.

But it could only be 10, 15 years. That's enough for you, is it?

Obviously I'd like more. But...

-You may get more.

-I may get more.

-But I think I'd be hurt if it's any less than 15 years.

-OK.

-BINGO CALLER:

-Pair of fives, 55.

Green 6 and 1, 61.

'Business owners in Hemsby, like Lorna and Del,

'are worried that the storm and pictures of houses in the sea

'have damaged the reputation of the resort.

'Tourism is essential to their survival.

'So they're hoping a marketing expert can come up with some ideas.'

I mean, there must be 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 jobs

that are reliant on this area.

If you spread it out to the holiday camps, the chalet sites,

local business...

We're not just looking at sort of defending the coast,

we're actually looking at making Hemsby nice.

We're looking at maybe painting, you know, murals on old,

disused toilet blocks. We're looking at planting marram grass.

You have to remember, and the traders of Hemsby,

none of this was your fault. It wasn't like it was a bad town.

You were the victim of weather and climate and tides.

And you need to move on from that cos there are

so many positive things to say about this place.

How do you suggest we tell the two different stories?

Because there's one story around Hemsby still needs help,

and the story that it's still open for business and it's doing great.

-How do we tell the two stories?

-That's a really good question.

I think it's a perfect combination of story, actually.

It's really interesting listening to you talk about the enthusiasm

you've had about the Save Hemsby Coastline,

cos what's significant about the fact you've had all that support

is that people believe it is worth saving.

It's not like, "Oh, it's only Hemsby."

In fact it's "What a fantastic resort with families,

"generations and generations, with a wonderful landscape - seascape."

And I think those two things go together. I think...

tell the story about what a fantastic place it is for a holiday

or to visit, and say, "Oh, and by the way,

"you realise this is a kind of frontier town in the sense

"that out there is the sea, and if you love this half as much as we do,

"help us to preserve it."

And I think it's almost a perfect combination.

'Good publicity alone won't save Hemsby.

'After the storm, this was what remained of the defences

'put on the beach by Lorna and the other villagers.

'The huge waves that night tore them out of the sand.

'Undeterred, today the residents of Hemsby are back

'to put down another line of rocks.'

The rocks arrived.

People are just, you know, digging in and getting the blocks filled.

Loads of people are helping out. Is this the way it's been working

over the last few months, that people just come up, volunteer,

to build your own defences?

This is what Hemsby's all about - community,

people getting together, doing it for ourselves.

There's no way we're going to sit back

and wait for somebody to take action.

If we wait, we could wait too long. These dunes are too important.

They need protecting now, so we're just getting on with it.

We'll keep putting in for our bids to the Government

but in the meantime we'll do the protection that we can.

Do you live in Hemsby?

No, we're holiday-makers and we came up two years ago

and then saw everything on the telly, December,

then came up this year for a fortnight's holiday.

I was amazed where everything is.

So we saw the poster and thought, you know, just give a hand,

try and tidy things up a bit.

Something's got to be done.

Nobody else has not bothered.

Something's got to be done otherwise it'll all just go.

It's a shame cos it's such a lovely place.

MUSIC: "White Wedding" by Billy Idol

'The happy wedding couple are married. Church service over,

'it's time to head for the beach for some photos.'

Why Hemsby?

I've spent many childhood holidays here and it feels like a second home.

And it's the first place we holidayed together as well.

So, even though you live in Essex, this was your first choice?

You both said, "Hey, let's get married in Hemsby.

"It means so much to us."

Yeah. Absolutely means the world. Well, I absolutely love Hemsby.

-I'd come here every year.

-We do come here every year.

-Yeah.

I think it is just I used to come here as a kid. It's just...

-It's got lots of happy memories for you.

-Yeah, very happy memories.

And now you've got married here. How special is that?

So Hemsby will always be very special to you now, even more so.

-Well, congratulations.

-Thank you.

-May I kiss the bride?

-You can.

-Congratulations. Hope you have a lovely day.

-Thank you.

Thank you very much.

# It's a nice day for a white wedding... #

'But there's one couple for whom the love affair with Hemsby is over.

'After they lost their home last December,

'Jackie and Steve Connelly moved away.

'They've come back today for the first time

'since that dramatic night.'

I don't know if you can cast your mind back.

I know it was a very traumatic evening for you

and everybody along this entire dune, wasn't it?

It was a very traumatic evening back in December.

What can you remember the most about it?

Coming up and...

It's just a shock, you know, of seeing it go like it did.

Just, you know, just didn't expect it.

-Even you didn't.

-No.

I think the first time when I realised it was getting serious

-was when the lifeboat station was tipping into the water.

-Yeah.

But even at that point, when I came to see you in the pub

and we walked down your road, I actually thought at that point,

"It'll be fine. There's no way Jackie and Steve's house

"will be in danger." And then we came round and the back had gone.

-Yeah, back had gone.

-The water was underneath.

It was just rushing round, you know.

-It's something I never want to see again.

-No.

-Is it easy coming back? How do you feel?

-No.

No, it's not easy coming back.

The only reason we're back is...because of you.

-I mean, otherwise... we'd never come back here.

-No.

I don't ever intend to come back here again.

But people here rallied round to help you at the time.

-You couldn't quite believe how the people were.

-Yeah.

Yeah, everybody was so good.

-Up to that night we knew about five people by name.

-Yeah.

We kept ourselves to ourselves and we never bothered, like, you know,

we said hello to people across from us.

After that night we knew half the village.

That night, I couldn't believe where all the people came from.

'But there is a happy ending.

'At the time, Steve and Jackie were worried they wouldn't get

'any compensation and be able to afford to buy another home.

'But fortunately they discovered

'although their insurance didn't cover them for erosion,

'they were covered for storm damage.

'It's meant a new start, not in Hemsby,

'but far from the sea in Rotherham.'

-So this is where you live now?

-Yeah.

-That's it now.

-Big bungalow.

-Yeah.

Isn't it amazing how fate has actually ended you up

-in a better position?

-Yeah.

-Almost.

I know you went through the tragedy,

-the trauma of losing your home.

-Yeah.

-But you couldn't sell your property here.

-No.

-You've had your pay-out.

-You've moved up north and you've got a job.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Isn't that amazing how your life has been turned around because of that?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Look at this, this is beautiful. On a day like today,

very easy to forget what it was like six months ago.

But when I first came back to Hemsby I kind of expected to find

people pretty fed up. And you would expect that

considering what happened to them. But I found the opposite.

Everyone's come together, everyone's working really hard to make sure

that they save their seaside. So I know it sounds cliche

but through adversity it's brought people closer together.

And I think that's what's special about Hemsby -

they will carry on here

no matter what the North Sea has to throw at them.