Inspired by complacent attitutes towards global heating, Edward Platt’s latest book interweaves stories of those across the UK affected by flooding
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Caroline Carpenter @carolinec1988
I wanted to try and understand why we were not more engaged by the climate crisis. I wanted to think about why we find it so easy to ignore
ward-winning writer Edward Plat began gathering material for his latest book back in November 2012, with a visit to the market town
of Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire. Over the following 18 months he travelled across Britain, from the south coast to the Lake District, meeting numerous people whose homes had been affected by flooding, and he tells their stories in The Great Flood (publishing in paperback with Picador in May). Plat’s inspiration for the book was the increasing number of instances of flooding happening nationwide. He explains: “It was the first manifestation of the climate crisis to affect Britain. Flooding had become impossible to ignore. I thought it was important to understand what it feels like to be flooded—because it is something that many more people will have to go through as climate change takes effect.” The book’s title refers to stories of an ancient flood found across various cultures. In the text, Plat refers to several historic floods and flood myths alongside the more recent accounts of flooding. He says of his decision to explore these in the book: “To most of those affected, being flooded feels like the end of the world, but I wondered if the rest of us seemed so happy to dismiss it because of the inherited knowledge preserved in the stories—that the planet has always flooded, and we have always come through OK. I think there is, simultaneously, a deep and deceptive familiarit with floods and a profound fear of them.”
The Great Flood, which took about three years to write, begins in Thorney, a village 0n the Somerset Levels that Plat first visited in January 2014 when it was under four feet of water. He realised this would provide the book’s opening aſter an encounter with a friendly local man who
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gave him a liſt through the village in a canoe. “I wanted to start it there, when I was siting in the canoe, in the dusk, surrounded by the flooded houses, because it seemed a glimpse of the future.” Thorney felt significant for another reason too, as Plat highlights in the book—“Westminster used to be called Thorney, and since so many people in the Somerset Levels blamed central government for what had happened to them, I thought of the two Thorneys as twin towns of a kind, entirely different, yet tied together by the unequal relationship between centre and margin.”
Forgotten flooded The feeling of being forgoten is prevalent throughout the book. Some of the people Plat encounters have dealt with multiple floodings and years of fallout, from the loss of family heirlooms to relationships breaking down, oſten with litle support from officials. However, as seen in the book, there is no universal response to the experience. Plat explains: “I was fascinated by the way different people reacted to being flooded, and the way they talked about it aſterwards. I was particularly fascinated by the people who shrugged off being flooded as a minor inconvenience—not the usual reaction.” He adds: “I wasn’t particularly surprised to meet people who refused to accept climate change as a factor in the floods of 2014—but I still found it disturbing.”
When Plat began writing the book, societ was (in his words) “remarkably complacent” about the threat that climate change posed. This provided another impetus for the project. He says: “I wanted to try and understand why we were not more engaged by the climate crisis. I wanted to think about why we find it so easy to ignore.” Now, he atributes this to the obvious—“no-one wants to change the way they live, and they don’t think it will make any difference if they did”—but he also floats the idea of “an inherited familiarit with the planet’s changing moods, articulated through the flood myths, that made it easier for people to discount the threat”. Whatever the reason, it’s clear that half a decade on “the mood has changed”.
Climate challenges
Since the book was released in hardback in October, Plat has been invited to write articles for several media outlets and to speak at literary festivals about flooding and climate change. He is doubtful that mainstream politicians will “rise to the challenge” posed by the climate crisis, but is hopeful that they will be “swept along by popular protests… and by commercial logic.” Either way, Plat believes the growing focus on these issues will have an impact on the travel industry. “Seven billion people exert pressure on the planet in countless different ways, and moderating its effects will not be easy. Many things will have to change—but travel will be one of them.”
Edward Platt’s The Great Flood (9781447298199) was published in hardback in October 2019 by Picador. Combining travel writing, reportage and history, it traces how flooding has shaped Britain and its inhabitants.
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