The day before the Hunter River unleashed its fury and the water flowed like an ocean over the top of Mount Pleasant Street, taking his family’s home with it, the 21-year-old Mr Gilmour was leaving his work at Maitland City Council early on that Thursday afternoon when he looked up and noted how dark the sky had become.

Maybe it was a forewarning of the destruction to come, that the flood to hit Maitland in 1955 would be more brutal than those in 1949, 1950 and 1952.

And it is a detail he will again remember as a speaker at Maitland City Library’s Look Who’s Talking Local History: Memory or Myth? Local Flood Stories event to commemorate the anniversary of the 1955 flood this month.

“I remember looking out over the Long Bridge and it was black,” Mr Gilmour, now 78 and a 50-year resident of Telarah, said.

“The only time I have seen it as black as that time was the weekend of the Pasha Bulker storm in 2007.”

As the son of a man born and raised in Mount Pleasant Street, Mr Gilmour was well versed in the dangers of floods.

On the morning of February 25, 1955, he packed a change of clothes and five pounds and left the family home to take refuge at his aunt’s house in Telarah.

That afternoon, from the safety of Cobbs Hill, he watched the brick house shift from its foundations and wash into the Long Bridge.

His mother collapsed.

And the tight-knit Mount Pleasant Street community, which was home to many branches of his family and close neighbours, was lost to history.

Maitland City Librarian Keryl Collard said the event would showcase some of the city’s flood stories, told by contributors of the Maitland Hunter River Oral History project as they compared their memories of flood events.

“Last year we launched our Maitland Hunter River Oral History project, which was a project where we’ve been interviewing people about their experiences with flooding,” she said.

“What we’re going to do at this event is have some of those contributors tell their stories, with [ABC Newcastle’s] Phil Ashley-Brown as facilitator.

“We’re also hoping to have some high school students talk about the 2007 flood and we’re going to record them.”

The event will be held at Maitland Gaol on February 23, from 6pm.

Cost is $15 per person including wine and canapes.

To book, visit any Maitland City Library branch, phone 4933 6952 or visit www.maitland.nsw.gov.au/library