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Memories: The crash of 1987

On October 19, 1987, I had been working in my first ever job for a total of 2 weeks in the London (UK) credit department of what is now BoNY Mellon.  I had let a basement flat in Nothing Hill from a family friend for a few months until I found the perfect place to set up!  That morning, I made my way to the office via the central line (to Bank station...).  All was well, I had heard during the night that there had been heavy wind, but really saw little impact on Kensington Park Road, the subway train was on time (as usual) but surprisingly empty -- but I didn't really focus on this because I'd only been on the job for 10 days -- half of which were in a training center in West London. 

I arrive in the office and few people are about -- that was getting surprising, and few people around  (all recently hired newbies) are congregating around the Reuter's machine (a green screen about the size of an Ipad).  Everyone is looking at the UK markets and French markets and the news was bad, then the calls started coming in, people were desperate (pre cell phone days) because they could not reach anyone and could not get it, most of the train service in the London region was suspended because of tree branches across the tracks. 

By 11 am we knew something was seriously wrong, the US had also had bad weather on the East Coast and there was a sense of "what in God's name is going on"  again Reuters news was coming out that investors could not reach their brokers and panic was starting to brew.

This was weeks after the "Big Bang" had occurred in the City of London -- and the markets had had a very very bad day.  Funny enough the absence of internet reduced the scope of the panic.  Still, it was an interesting way to start a carrrer in banking



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