Our present town has flooded for hundreds of years and these events have been well documented.

I make no comment on how this problem can be alleviated but it was impossible for the earliest town to flood having been built on top of a hill within and around the castle and where now stands the church of SS Peter and Paul.

As the town grew, more properties were built below that high ground.
Well Street, Nelson Street, Hunter Street and beyond then emerged.
Those inhabitants certainly suffered the same problems that we have today.

Your edition printed on Friday, July 25, 2008 prompted me to recount a few memories which, I hope, will be of interest to your readers.

During the last war when I was a young boy, practically every household with the river at the bottom of their garden, including The White Hart Hotel, kept a boat.

I particularly well remember one flood in 1947. My brother Anthony and I, along with other friends, borrowed a large punt from Messrs.Thomas the Builders, who were then based in Norton House, Hunter Street.

We boated up parts of Nelson Street and Hunter Street and then carried the boat up St Rumbold's Lane and over into Well Street where we then paddled it past the property where the Advertiser & Review offices are now situated.

This reminded me of Jack Pickering, a well-known farrier whose forge was in School Lane.

He lived at No.5 Nelson Street, by the little lane leading down to the River Ouse, until his death in the late 1950s.

I have great pleasure in having known such a man and I sat in his cottage on many occasions listening to wonderful stories, particularly of his experiences in the Boer War, 1899 -1902.

Jack told me about one of the floods.

His brother Thomas and some other young men were watching the high water raging under Lords Bridge in Hunter Street when a boy fell into the river. Thomas immediately knew that it would be impossible to swim after the lad, so, with great wisdom, he ran flat out, throwing off all but his pants as he went, and arrived at The Iron Bridge in Ford Street just in time to see the boy approaching.

Thomas dived in, grabbed him firmly and they finally got out of the water somewhere in Stratford Road below the BP Garage.

Both lived to tell this story although I never knew either of them, but I did see hanging on the wall in their home a certificate presented by The Royal Humane Society to Thomas Pickering for his act of great bravery.

David Smith
Finmere

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