ONE woman's enduring images of the 1953 floods have nothing to do with the water. For Gabrielle Davis, from Beltinge, who was 12 at the time, the most appalling thing was having extra netball lessons.

She said: "I was at La Sainte Union convent school and we used the memorial park's football pitches to play hockey in the winter, but it was under water.

"We couldn't use it again until the next year, and had an extra term of netball, which I hated.

"The other thing I remember is children coming into school wearing their own clothes, which was unheard of, but they had to if their uniforms were lost of soaked."

Mrs Davis lived in Herne Bay High Street, close to Canterbury Road, and escaped the worst of the floods: "I wasn't aware much was happening until we went to church on the Sunday morning," she said.

"We usually walked back along the seafront, but we couldn't because all the houses had their windows smashed and it was dangerous.

"I didn't realise how bad it was until I spoke to the other children at school on Monday."