SAM PERKS, later to become manager of Currys, Whitstable, and a long-serving member of the town's Lions Club, was working as a fisherman at the time and was one of the team which rescued people by dinghy.

"On the Saturday night I went down to the harbour to check our fishing boat and found the water was already nearing the top of the quays with two hours to go before high tide," he remembers.

"I reported this to the police and was told I was panicking."

He recalls the problems he and his colleagues faced in their task of helping people, including the time he had to get into a house by going into freezing water to get through a ground floor window.

When he got inside he found a man and woman standing on a cooker and draining board with their heads only inches above water which had almost reached the ceiling.

On another occasion he helped others as they struggled to get a well-built woman through an upstairs window and down a ladder and plank to their boat.

Mr Perks said that although the situation was grim, there were lighter moments.

"One lady we went to asked if we minded waiting a few minutes while she changed. She disappeared and came back some time later dressed in a two-piece suit, court shoes and a fur coat. As we rowed her to safety she said it was the first time she had been in a boat for 40 years."

There was also the day when an American airman from Manston showed off his athletic prowess to get into a house with a flat roof in Island Wall.

"It was down an alley too narrow to take a boat so this chap well over six foot tall with weight to match his height climbed on to the roof of the house opposite, which also had a flat roof," said Mr Perks.

"He then took a running jump across the gap, crashed through the roof and landed by the side of an elderly man who was in bed."