If there seems to be no end to the lashings of rain this autumn, at least things are not as bad as they were 80 years ago. There had been a prolonged drought throughout much of 1929, and early autumn was gloriously warm, but all that changed in November when storms and rains crashed down. On November 11 Wales was deluged by the sort of rainfall expected from a monsoon cloudburst, with 211mm (8.3in) at Lluest Wen Reservoir, at the head of the Rhondda Valley. This is the highest 24-hour rainfall total yet recorded in November in the UK. A few miles away in the coalmining town of Treherbert, about 625 houses were flooded, the flooding made worse by subsidences from the colliery workings. Rivers of mud poured down the steep valley slopes, swept through homes and shops and lay several feet thick on roads. Hundreds of people had to be evacuated from their homes.

And the rains carried on for the rest of the month. In the village of Porth, The Times on November 21 reported: “People are still besieged in their bedrooms, and are only able to leave by crawling along planks placed from their bedroom window sills to the railway embankment opposite.” By the end of the month large areas of the Midlands, West Country and South England were flooded. It was the wettest November of the 20th century, and to add to the relentless bad news, the Wall Street Crash reached a new rock bottom on November 13. And December brought no relief, with furious gales and more rain.