Flood heroes

We had been put onto flood warning and after putting her youngest children to bed, Ellie Prince came to our house with her oldest son Charlie (10) and his friend Tom. They all helped to move our belongings upstairs to safety. They left about 10.30pm on the Thursday.

Just after this, we received the severe flood warning. I phoned the Princes and they put the phone by the bed and told me to ring at any time. At 4.15am I phoned them as the water was about to come in.

Ellie came over and rescued the last of our belongings before the water came in. She then helped to wake my two young children, aged 6 and 3, to get them ready to leave and took them off to her house with the youngest screaming.

She cared for them whilst we finished off moving things like the washing machine onto breeze blocks.

When we arrived at her house, her husband made us all a wonderful full cooked breakfast, which was so much appreciated when we'd only had two hours sleep.

In the days that followed, they looked after the children numerous times whilst we cleared up. Simon also kept checking on the house and moving things higher when needed, as they were nearer to our house.

They were an invaluable help and we really would have been stuck without their help.