Added: 24-09-2008
On Saturday the 6th of September Last Night of Freedom's home town of Morpeth hit the national news as the town fell victim to the worst floods it has seen since the mid 1940's. Hundreds of homes had to be evacuated as the emergency services swiftly sprang into action.
Being situated in a second floor office we were safely out of harms way. All of the business and shops on the ground floor below us were all evacuated by the police while the Last Night of Freedom staff who were working that Saturday had a very difficult time getting home to Newcastle as all of the roads in and out of Morpeth were closed.
Thankfully the vast majority of our staff live in Newcastle or Alnwick and travel to work. Only one member of our staff, Will, actually lives in Morpeth and his house was safely out of reach of the flood waters. Many businesses were forced to close down with a large proportion of these expected to be closed for many months. Several of the pubs which we visit after work are also still closed. The Red Bull, in the picture opposite is one of our favourites for an after work pint, unfortunately we have no idea when this will open again and we don't hold out much hope for the space invaders game either.
While non of our homes were affected by the flood waters Garry did unfortunately lose his car, which he had only owned for two months. The area where the car is parked in this picture is usually a car park rather than a slab of mud. The car itself was moved across the car park by the water, although this is the straightest we have ever seen it parked. If you take a look at the interior you can really get an idea of how bad this flood was. Notice the pool of dirty water on the dash board, this shows just how high the flood waters came.
So while the home town of Last night of Freedom hit the national news we are incredibly pleased we have a second floor office, we almost took a ground floor one in the worst effected area.