Chapter 1: The Collapse

In the Spring of 2011 I started a two year contract at an oil refinery in North Lincolnshire as a C&I engineer. It was a drop in rate from my previous jobs but, at fifty four, we were mortgage free and it looked reasonably secure; business confidence was at an all time low and unemployment was over 3 million. After all, I thought, everyone needs fuel. Sally, my wife of nearly 30 years, was relieved for me to be at home every night as there had been some unrest in the cities. We were living in a small village four miles from Bridlington in the East Riding of Yorkshire where we had lived since we married. We had not been blessed with children in spite of having loads of fun trying. I know this was a major regret of Sally's but we led a full life and she doted on her nephews and nieces who lived in the south west, as did Karen and Geraldine, her two sisters.

Two weeks after I started at the refinery Gordon Brown resigned as the Prime Minister of a minority labour government, the result of an indecisive election ten months previously. After two weeks of talks, and in the light of the continued deterioration in the home and world economic situation, the major parties decide to form a coalition government.

In June of that year all the UK banks and building societies were nationalised by the coalition government. Many of the banks were already partly state owned after the problems in 2008. I think every bank in the western world was either broke or nationalised. Foreign exchange rates fluctuated wildly from day to day and this brought world trade to a standstill. We were considering a trip to France for our annual holiday but there had been riots and protests all over France. We then considered a trip to the US but this looked impossible. The final nail in the coffin of any overseas trip was the difficulty in obtaining foreign currency. Debit and credit cards were now only usable in the country of issue. Banks were now charging a huge margin on currency exchanges and this scuppered our plans. At one point I was quoted £1.80 for $1, and when I asked what I could sell the dollars back for if I didn't use them all I was told $1.75 for £1. We ended up visiting Karen and Geraldine, and enjoyed taking their children on some days out.

In September the economic situation meant that oil imports had almost stopped. As a result the refinery where I was working was idle as most supplies of crude oil came in by sea from abroad. Initially we were told to carry on with our project but I knew in another couple of months I would be out of a job.

By the start of winter, banks would no longer exchange foreign currency but black market traders had filled the gap. These black market traders would still exchange the various currencies but only at a huge discount. Gold South African Krugerands started to appear on the 'alternative' market. Russia also started issuing silver rouble coins and these began circulating throughout Europe and possibly further afield. Who would have thought that the Rouble would become the currency of choice for many people. A ten rouble silver coin was worth roughly £5 but in many cases the price of something in roubles would be reduced as everyone understood the value of the silver coins.

At first the government tried to make using currencies other than sterling illegal but that was a bit like using chewing gum to plug a crack in a dam and in any case, there was no one to enforce the rules.

At the end of the month floods and gales affected the whole country. Power supplies and transport were seriously disrupted and never really recovered.

The Winter of 2011-12 was another cold and snowy one. We were definitely in a period of climate change which, I suspected, was due to an alteration in the gulf stream. A lot of people don't realise that if it wasn't for the gulf stream the UK climate would be more like that in Alaska. I was laid off from my refinery job before Christmas. I started doing odd jobs around Bridlington for cash and was making just enough for us to live on.

During spring the news bulletins reported that the climate change had also affected the North American continent and there was widespread drought in the US and Canada. It was worse than the 1930's dust bowl years. US and Canadian exports of grain were halted as they were needed to feed their own people, not that we had foreign currency to pay for it anyway.

The summer of 2012 was a long hot one and fuel rationing was introduced. It was academic really as only the desperate few would queue for three hours or more for the monthly ration of two gallons. There were whole-scale layoffs in the public sector and private industry was all but finished.

Many people took temporary work on farms doing jobs previously filled by foreign workers. For most of these, the fine weather and outdoor work was a break from the nine-to-five drudgery of an office or factory and they treated it like a holiday; setting up tents in the fields and cooking over open fires.

The fine weather meant that we had a good harvest in the UK which offset the effects of the drought in the US and Canada. Food supplies were still plentiful but there was much less choice.

The winter of 2012-13 was as cold and snowy as the famous 1962-63 one which I was just able to remember. We were now walking or cycling everywhere and were snowed in for three weeks. The army brought us basic food supplies.

Then just before Christmas the first signs of a major disaster hit us. A major flu pandemic started in south east Asia. We didn't get to hear a lot about it but it spread rapidly and by the end of January 2013 it had reached the UK.

My wife, Sally, was one of the victims. I was devastated. I knew she was very ill and took her to hospital but they did nothing, they were overwhelmed and had no treatments available. I took her home and she died two days later. She died on the twelfth of February aged just fifty years. I felt powerless, I knew that not only had I lost my wife, who was my lover and my best friend, but that the world had changed and the clock could not be put back.

What made it worse was I had no way of contacting her sisters. I felt isolated. The phone system was down, and postal deliveries ceased once the snow came. I eventually I managed to contact Karen by phone in April but long distance calls were now very hit and miss. She told me that her other sister, Geraldine, had lost her husband to the flu.

There were fifty three people in our village before the flu; after there were forty one. Three houses were now unoccupied and everyone lost a relative or a friend. Burying the dead was a nightmare; the ground was frozen and each grave had to be dug by hand. We put a simple wooden cross on each grave, which I engraved with their details, it was more than most victims got.

The infrastructure and facilities in the western world were unable to cope with the flu pandemic. Probably one in five people who caught it died. In the UK alone the authorities estimated it killed over one million people, but I did not believe these figures, I reckon the real figure was at least three times that, maybe a lot more, based on my own experience. The Army ended up burying the dead in mass graves, and even now, ten months later, decomposing bodies would be found in abandoned properties. To be honest I don't think anyone knew the true figure as most deaths were not recorded in any way.