‘That Awful Night in October’: Sensory Experiences of Britain’s 1987 Hurricane

Abstract

This article explores sensory experiences of the 1987 ‘Hurricane’ in Britain. Through mass observers’ testimonies, we examine the impact of sensory disruption to domestic ‘sensoria’. We examine in turn disturbing noises; the anxieties circulating around windows; the loss of power to heat and light domestic environments, and, finally, the kinetic power of the storm to threaten the bounds between interior and exterior worlds. Finally, we place observers’ sensory narratives into the context of cold war fears over the contingency of domestic space and its embodied comforts. In conclusion, we argue that the 1987 storm revealed an increasing sense of sensory separation from external nature.