We all have our stories of the great hurricane of 1987. This one had a mysterious connection all the way from Switzerland.

Crash, smash, sound of breaking glass, the noise of breaking wood.

Was I dreaming, was it real? Whatever it was, it had woken me up at 2.00 AM. I stumbled around the hotel bedroom looking for cracked mirrors, smashed windows, fallen chairs, anything that would explain the noise and confusion. Nothing had moved, nothing was broken. Relieved, I sat on the edge of the bed, trying to collect and connect.

It had been a late night getting to bed. Next day was the last day of five weeks in management training on the management course in Switzerland. The last day was dedicated to a big presentation of group work which had been exercising us for the last week. The subject was the European timber industry and I, being the native English speaker, was selected to do the main part of presentation. And as these things go, that meant also preparing the slides and organizing what was to be said. It had taken until 1.00 AM by the time slides were in the right order and the words loosely connected to them. The churning thoughts about trees, timber, wood prices and the furniture market across Europe had finally melted into slumber about an hour before the sudden sounds of destruction had broken sleep.

Four hours to go before the alarm was due to go off. What chance of getting any further sleep? I sat up on the pillows, while the timber industry relodged itself in my brain, and the eerie feeling of disquiet from the false disturbances around the room still echoed.

11.00 the next morning the timber market of Europe was in full swing, as I stood with pointer posed half way through my part of the presentation. Concentrating on the audience and the slides, I was dimly aware that there was a knocking on the lecture room door, dimly aware that somebody was asking for Mr. Bourne, and then very aware that fingers were pointing to me. Stopping in full flow, I looked to see the Secretary of the course appearing flustered at the door, telling me that I must come straight away to the phone for an urgent message. Of course, my first reaction was that I couldn’t stop in the middle of the presentation, could she take a message. Turning back to my notes and the pointer, I noted that she hadn’t left the doorway. ‘It’s your wife on the phone and she’s very insistent that you should speak to you’. This was clearly serious, and more important than whatever wondrous solutions had been found for the timber industry of Europe. Putting the pointer down and apologising to the audience, I followed her up the corridor to the faculty office.

- I had to insist in talking to you; you don’t understand what’s been happening here

- It must be important; are you all alright?

- We are now; there was a terrible storm, a hurricane, in the middle of the night. Trees are down in the road, one nearly falling into our house, and we’ve been up all night. I’ve got to the only phone still working in the road so that you would know how difficult it’s going to be

- I’ll be flying home tonight

- But you may not be able to get from the Airport to home; it’s a disaster all round and most of the roads are blocked; the tree outside the house has been roped to the tree opposite so that it doesn’t fall on us. You need to know because you may not be able to get home tonight

- Are you sure you’re all OK

- Yes but you may need to rethink your travel

After a deep breath and a rather shaky walk along the corridor, I took up again the pointer for the presentation

- I do apologise for the delay. The call was important. Apparently the timber industry of the UK has been falling in the middle of the night and quite a bit of it is lying in my road or about to fall on my house. The UK is cut off from the continent!

The presentation finished, as did all the other groups’. Our group won whatever the prize was, said our goodbyes and went to the airport. The plane did land at Heathrow and the car sent to fetch me did manage to find a way, with many diversions and back doubles, to get me home by about 1.00 AM. Only with the dawn next day, could I see for myself the devastation in the road and our garden. Then I understood it how important that phone call was.

I still could not understand how the noise of devastation reached me 900 km away in a hotel room in Lausanne at the very moment it was battering my home in London.