We had our monthly session at Armathwaite last Wednesday and could hear the roaring of the River Eden in the dark. I happened to sing the ballad "Jock o' the Side" where the escaping rescue party have to ford the swollen north Tyne, and they ask an old man at Chollerford. "Will the water ride?"

And up and spoke the good auld man
"Here I've lived thirty years and three
But ne'r yet saw the Tyne sae big,
And running at ance sae like the sea"

It was uncanny to hear his words echoed today by a resident of Eamont Bridge just south of Penrith, whose house was flooded and had never seen the river rise so much in the 36 years he'd been living there.