Four days after the worst floods anyone in Rochdale can remember, the town was gearing up for the next torrent after forecasters predicted yet more heavy rain. Everyone was playing their part. A group of Syrian refugees from Manchester had even pitched up ready to help, and were put to work shovelling sand into sandbags, in the car park of the Conservative club in Littleborough.

“We saw the pictures on TV and wanted to help,” said Yasser al-Jassem, 35, a teacher who came to Britain in the back of a lorry from Calais in May. “The people of Greater Manchester have been very good to us and so we wanted to offer our help to them.”

But many of the 180 households who were flooded out in Littleborough, a few miles north of Rochdale town centre, when the river Roch burst its banks on Saturday, didn’t see the point in protecting their homes. They turned their noses up at the sandbags. “There’s nowt left to protect,” said Sean Whitham, whose terrace on Todmorden Road was one of the worst affected.

Everything downstairs had been ruined, he said, apart from his prize possession: “I dived in to fetch my golf clubs,” said the window fitter, 48. His Peugeot 206 was a write-off. “It were a convertible. Now it’s a submarine,” he said on Tuesday, in the Conservative club, which had been turned into the nerve centre of the flood relief effort. He had come to seek free financial advice – he only renewed his road tax last week and was hoping for a refund.

Landlord Bob Barker, left, and tenant Dennis Franklin move furniture out of a flooded flat in Littleborough. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

The “Con club” is usually home to club singers and clog-dancing competitions, but it has been open since Boxing Day for those seeking help. A vat of hotpot was bubbling away and there was a limitless supply of tea and coffee. The council had promised £500 to all affected households, deposited directly into the bank accounts of those who pay council tax by direct debit.

The money will cover only a fraction of the damage suffered by many, including Dennis Franklin. The security guard’s one-bed flat on Garden Mews, right by the Roch, was flooded with waist-high water. He was in the flat when the waters rose with terrifying speed on Saturday, giving him time to just put his bearded collie over his shoulder and escape. “We were scared for our lives,” he said.

Franklin has no contents insurance. “No one would insure me. I phoned three different companies a few years ago and they wouldn’t touch me because I live too near the river.” With the whole flat ruined, he reckoned it would cost £9,000 to £10,000 to replace his lost goods. His landlord, Bob Barker, had three flooded properties in the same block and had only just read the small print of his insurance policy to discover that a flood exclusion clause applied.

Residents clear up after the Boxing Day floods in Littleborough. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Around the corner on Victoria Street, Kathryn Watson was waiting. “Have you got a magic wand?” she asked, hands on hips outside her terrace. She had been waiting since Sunday for the loss adjusters to arrive. Until they come she can’t throw out her damaged goods without risking her insurance claim. “They’ve said they’re all over the show at the minute but I’m a priority. Well, I’m waiting.”

Watson, a catering assistant, has lived on the street for 40 years and said this was the first time it had flooded. Over the road, Natalie Welsh, 26, said she had spent three days without electricity. It had been hard, she said, but everyone had pitched in to help. “The first night the Asians knocked on the door when we were sitting in the pitch black and offered us rice and curry,” she said. A group of farmers also turned up with a tractor and Stanley knives to rip out and take away her sodden carpet.



On Church Street, Patrick Wrath, a full-time dad, was also waiting for the loss adjusters. He was philosophical about the flooding. “The Boxing Day tsunami was not lost on us. Hundreds of thousands of people died then. Here the death toll was zero. You’ve got to have perspective,” he said. Yet some losses were painful. “The sofa, the furniture is all gone but I don’t give a monkey’s about all that. What does hurt is that all of the photos of our 20-month-old son, Baxter, were on digital devices which are now knackered. Every picture, from day one.”

For those whose physical photo albums were damaged, help was at hand up the road in Todmorden. Frances Spencer from Colne, in east Lancashire, had set up shop in the town hall with equipment to save pictures spoiled by flood water and sewage. “It occurred to me that I have the skills and equipment to photograph photos (and important documents) before they’re thrown away. I can then digitally restore them as much as possible,” she said on Facebook. “Then I’d email the digital images back to the owners.”