Moorland, Somerset -
an English village like any other.
But last year this quite ordinary place
had an extraordinary experience.
It was the wettest winter in 250 years.
Storms brought misery to large parts of the country,
but nowhere was worse hit than the Somerset Levels.
We've lost everything.
I've lost my house, I've lost my own family, I've lost everything.
In the space of 24 hours, people's homes and lives were washed away.
That's it. We've officially lost it all.
The area was inundated with dignitaries,
and politicians promised to bring help to the stricken villagers.
DAVID CAMERON: Money will be no object.
I don't want people to worry about penny-pinching
as they see the vital work needed to help them with their houses,
to help them deal with the floods.
But when media interest ebbed away, the villagers were left
to rebuild their homes and their lives.
I just spent four years renovating this place
and now I've got to start again.
We follow them as they cope with the stress and strains
of dealing with builders and insurance companies.
The insurance will not pay for nothing.
They have not given us anything.
But we discover the floodwaters have left
a residue of bitterness and despair.
You people have been saying
dredging the river is not going to make any difference at all.
Complete and utter rubbish.
No-one is telling us the truth. You pulled a plug.
We did not pull anything.
And will they be able to rebuild their lives
and find happiness again?
Happy tears. Happy tears. Better now?
It's the 6th of February and the villagers are valiantly
fighting to save their homes.
People like Phil and Lana Smithen.
Preoccupied with just desperately trying to stem this flow of water.
Managed to get hold of two pumps that we were using and it was...
It was desperate, actually.
This morning I got up and I felt sick, physically sick.
Yesterday I was just shaking all day.
I just couldn't... I couldn't stop shaking. Sorry.
It's all right. Come here.
The water was just overwhelming us.
The water is coming through into that area and that area there.
Phil's a retired head teacher, Lana a school secretary.
We didn't - in our wildest dreams - did not ever envisage
over a metre of water coming straight through the downstairs of our home.
Once the rain stopped,
the village stood in polluted water for six weeks.
As one of the lowest-lying areas of the country,
the Somerset Levels rely on an intricate system of man-made drains,
ditches, rivers and pumps to keep them above water.
Faced with one of the wettest winters on record,
the existing pumps couldn't remove the water fast enough.
The Environment Agency brought in extra pumps,
but some villagers believe their efforts were too little, too late.
This is just unbelievable.
What I can't get out of my mind is it could have been avoided.
Yes, we could have had some floods, but not on this scale,
if the Environment Agency had shown some responsibility
in terms of... and got their priorities right.
It's an absolute disgrace, quite honestly,
and heads should be rolling over this.
And things should be done. HE GROANS
The rural communities of Moorland and Fordgate are made up
of a church, a village hall and 148 homes.
120 were severely flooded.
The surrounding farms were also overwhelmed by the deluge.
Mary and Brian Hutchens have lived
and bred dairy cattle here all their lives.
We rang up the NFU to see where the animals...if there was any space
on other farms for the animals to go.
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, we were busy all day
and every day, moving out animals.
Your first instinct is animal welfare. As literally as that.
We've got a nephew at North Curry.
He kindly took the young yearlings,
what we call the calves, that have grown up for a year.
And he's taken those, all those.
And we've got another nephew down at Cannington, and his wife.
She absolutely loves Friesians and she took on my babies.
Mary and Brian had to be persuaded to leave their farm.
The policeman come in. Me and Bri was having breakfast.
He said, "Mary and Brian, you cannot stay in here,
"sat in two foot of water."
And we said, "Well, we've got another load to go and that's it."
Then the electric went.
He said, "Well, that's it." He said, "You can't now."
And we said, "No, we've got to wait for those animals to go first."
When Mary and Brian finally returned to their farm,
they found a scene of devastation.
Hello, Dinky. There's a good girl.
It's on the side of the door here, look.
You can see how high it's come up.
What would that be? About two-and-a-half, three feet?
Up to there. So all that was underwater.
I'm sure some people would have looked at this and thought
it's time to put up your feet and do something else?
When we came back...I expect it was about the second day.
A neighbour came to us, "Are you back for good?"
And we said yes. "Oh, thank the Lord for that," he said.
"We've all said this'll finish Mary and Brian."
And we said no. Not us.
Maria and Philip Maye bought their dream home four years ago
for over £300,000.
Look at it.
Phil's a retired major in the Royal Engineers.
SHE SOBS Oh, God. It's worse than I thought.
They returned in March to find their house in ruins.
Give me strength, God.
'It was a sad day to come back in here six weeks later. Very sad.'
Can't talk about it.
I can't.
Oh, dear God.
I know it's just sort of furniture.
It's not the furniture, it's the little things.
The little things that you are missing.
Like diaries, photographs.
It's gone.
This low-lying area of the country has a system to cope with flooding.
When water levels are high, the rivers overflow into the moors
which act as a vast sponge to store water until it can be pumped away.
But last winter the moors were already saturated.
Overwhelmed by the unprecedented rain,
they flooded the communities on their fringes.
They're from yesterday but, yeah.
Some villagers believe that more could have been done to protect
their homes, and they set up a campaign organisation -
the Flooding On The Levels Action Group, or FLAG.
We've got two bunny rabbits.
Bryony Sadler's a leading player in FLAG.
She's a mother-of-two and runs a hairdressing business.
Her husband, Gavin, a graphic designer, set up the group.
This is our rental property that we moved to as a long-term rental
and basically, you know, until we needed to go home. Elsa.
We can't go in a two-up, two-down because we've got so many animals
and there's so many of us, so it had to be a little bit larger.
Oh, naughty chickens.
I don't think Topsy and Tim have laid any recently.
Back in February the Sadlers took the precaution of evacuating their
home and taking the children to a place of safety.
It was from there that they got the news they dreaded -
that their property had flooded.
If you look, sort of... If you step across from the conservatory...
Oh, I don't want to know.
OK, thank you.
Thank you. Bye.
They've blocked the road off because they're trying to get the cows out,
and the horse, and then when they've done that
the Environment Agency are going to plan C, whatever plan C is.
Well, I've had to have the police people go in and turn my oil
and my boiler off, and that's it.
We've officially lost it all.
Daddy put that up on there.
Daddy put all those things up on there.
So they won't get ruined.
So they don't get ruined, you're right.
'To be inundated with water, and dirty water, the muck
'off the fields and then, of course, we're all on septic tanks
'so it's all human waste as well...
'Where do you start?'
There's nothing under them. I checked them this morning.
Where's Janet? Janet's hiding.
Since then they've been living out of boxes
whilst trying to earn a living and keep family life on track.
How are you finding it, being homeless? Stressful.
Because, you know, you've got here to look after
and then we've got to look after home cos obviously
we want to go home with it looking how it did.
So you've got to do the gardening here and the gardening there
and, you know, project managing your own life and dealing with a
disaster and running two businesses, it's an absolute nightmare.
Mid-March.
The waters have receded, leaving behind a trail of debris.
A massive clear-up operation is being undertaken and volunteers
from across the country have come to help the people of Moorland.
The villagers are scattered across Somerset.
Only a handful have returned, like Maria Maye and her husband, Phil,
and are living in caravans
near their properties while their homes are uninhabitable.
As if the flood wasn't enough,
today Maria's had some news from her insurer.
It actually just says that the final decision was made
to void our policy on 24th of February.
That's when they actually voided the policy.
And they're definitely sticking by that.
Because they failed to declare this drain near their house,
their insurance won't be paying them a penny.
With no pay-out, it means that Maria and Phil
will have to fund the work on their house themselves.
But the volunteer army have stepped in to lend a hand.
Oh, it's warm in here, isn't it? Yeah, you can strip off all you want.
I've just told them that.
We'll get there. It'll be even nicer than what it was before.
We spent four years renovating this place
and now we've got to start again.
So, yeah, hey-ho.
So why is this area so difficult to keep dry?
The answer lies in the history.
The Somerset Levels were once covered by the sea.
It made an ideal home for monks who chose to live an isolated life
and it was here that the great monasteries of Glastonbury, Athelney
and Muchelney were built upon islands in this watery wilderness.
It was the monks who began the vast job of reclaiming the land
and turning it to agricultural use.
Over the centuries flood defences have been improved,
with huge investment in man-made rivers,
waterways and pumping stations.
To fight the menace of the floods,
vast drainage schemes are in progress.
Typical examples are those near Bridgewater in Somerset.
These efforts have dramatically reduced flooding.
But the man-made system can be overwhelmed
and it needs constant maintenance.
The Environment Agency stopped routinely dredging the rivers here
more than ten years ago
and dismissed claims that de-silting would prevent flooding.
But the unprecedented floods led to a U-turn.
Eight weeks later, work commenced on the River Parrett.
Take Teddy up the path. Please be careful with him.
It's a victory for Bryony
and the campaign group, who believe that increasing the flow
and capacity of the rivers will reduce the risk of flooding.
This is the bit that's been identified as the worst area.
So this is... In total it'll be 8km that they should be doing.
They've got until the end of October.
They're going to have to ramp it up
because at the moment it's not good enough. It's too slow.
Go and jump, Els! Jump, jump.
Three-year-olds can't explain.
You know, she just gets up in the middle of the night
and wets the bed, very upset and wanting to go home.
But of course at the moment we can't go home cos there's no downstairs.
It's April, and the village is uninhabited
while the properties dry out.
Phil and Lana's insurance is paying out,
but it's still a long and painful process.
The house is being emptied and cleaned.
It's just the daunting task of knowing who's going to be coming,
who we need to phone, who we need to talk to.
It's just overwhelming, really.
It's just tearing our lives apart, really.
We've been here over 40 years,
we've built this house up and it's just tearing it all apart.
There's frustration at Mary and Brian's farm too.
They've had to keep their cattle indoors
since the water destroyed their fencing.
They should have been out six weeks, two months ago,
if it wasn't for the floods, and they would have been happier and healthier
and we would have been straighter.
But the frustration is enormous, for us and them.
It's so nice to see them go out in the summer
and the first day out we've had for years,
when we used to milk the cows, the old granny that couldn't move,
you open the gate and let her out - she'll show you she can move!
Right, I'm putting up this extra white tape with electric in it
so that they can see it easy, hopefully,
so they won't jump over on the way out through to the next field.
He's round checking the fence,
that the electric's going all the way round the field now.
Got to make sure it comes back at this end and then we can open
the gate down in the shed and then they should - fingers crossed -
come out here, skip and go down across the field into the next one.
We hope.
Mary, like many people in the village,
feel that the authorities let them down.
The waters came in unbelievably fast.
I'm sorry, but if they cannot manage water management better than that,
why are they doing the job that they're doing?
I strongly believe - and I know hundreds of other people the same -
it's not the chaps on the ground.
They are doing a brilliant job
and they've got to work hard in order to do their job.
It's the ones higher up in their little ivory towers
that think they know everything, and I'm sorry but they know nowt.
They've been told year after year it's not working.
But will they listen? No, "We know best."
Well, I hope...
I hope this has proved they've realised they don't know best.
So the pumps are in place, we just need to tart it up
a little bit, so obviously the flooring, what's going down here?
John Rowlands is the Environment Agency's
Flood and Coastal Risk Management team leader.
So, new plaster?
Today he's at the pumping station which protects Moorland.
He's become the face of an organisation some villagers detest.
Cos the wall does look a bit...
Is this is where the water came in? The egress?
The Environment Agency insist they did all they could
to protect Moorland, but some residents don't believe them.
Those responsible for taking the decision
that led to this catastrophe, they need to account for themselves.
They need to spell out the theory behind it,
what they hoped to achieve.
It would be fair to say that we did our level best
to try and get that water away as quickly as we could.
It was just such an unprecedented event that it was way off our scale
of understanding, certainly when it comes to levels of flooding.
Somerset is special.
To me it's very, very special and I think we need to do our level best
to try and keep it as special as we can.
But some villagers continue to believe that Moorland
was sacrificed to save the larger towns downstream.
The unanswered question that just keeps haunting me
is the fact that last year, of course, we had severe flooding.
Only one or two houses in the village were affected.
This year we end up with a village that's completely underwater.
Something happened. That wasn't just rainfall that caused that overnight.
They moved water from one place to another,
and a huge quantity of water as well, and sacrificed us.
John Rowlands is on a campaign to convince
the villagers that the flood was not man-made.
Hell, let's just get them in and be safe.
We tried to deal with the situation.
Some people would say not well enough and, fine, I accept that.
But hopefully these events will try and explain
how the agency works and how do they wish to be treated in the future.
You have to understand the feelings that people who are flooded,
or who have been impacted by flooding, how they feel.
I'm not a happy man.
And I will remain very, very cross until we get some answers
in terms of what happened and why it happened and, of course,
what they're planning to do in the future with regard to safeguarding.
Bye!
John Rowlands is running a tour for villagers
to win back hearts and minds.
So now we're onto the River Tone and whether we like it or not,
this is an absolute haven for water voles.
To enable us to do the work we've had to trap them and move them on.
And where have you moved them to?
They've gone on holiday. They'll be back soon.
It's a long way to come from Hampshire but we have such a good
population here that we've moved the excess away...
How much money does that cost to do that?
Erm, let's put it like this.
Without moving those, the dredge would not have taken place.
Oh, for Christ's sake. I've heard it all. I've heard it all as well.
The final stop is Curry Moor pumping station
and it's a chance to air the grievances
that have festered since the floods.
But you will see at the back here there are some more pumps,
some big white pumps.
These were bought in 2006
and they take out about one cubic metre of water per second.
There are two of those.
These pump out about five, seven, seven-and-a-half.
And we have the facility to bring more pumps in as we did last time.
Can I just make a point?
Are you talking about moving water from place to place? Yes.
How come we get nothing last year in terms of flooding?
This year we came down to 1.2m of filthy water
completely engulfing our ground floor?
And that happened over a day.
That wasn't... Water must have been moved to have caused that.
Don't shake your head cos it must have been moved.
Absolutely, categorically deny that accusation.
There is no structure that we magically turn or push a button on.
There's none of that.
We could rest a bit better next year if somebody just said to us,
"We're sorry, we just made a mistake."
We've got this hanging over us now for the next umpteen years
till we die and, you know, it's horrible.
We've gone through stress you wouldn't believe
and we've still got stress to come
because no-one is telling us the truth.
You pulled a plug, and we know it.
I don't care what you say, and that is it.
I've said to you already, I will not lie to you.
We did not pull anything. There is nothing to pull.
It wasn't natural.
OK, all I can say to you is that the water that came through Taunton
on that February morning was the same size in volume
as you experienced in 2000.
Now, in 2000 the moors were empty
so therefore the water that came down went into that moor.
Last year the moor was full when we had that.
We have to accept that people will make accusations.
It is very much in the heat of the moment.
In due course, when things have settled down a little bit,
we can answer those accusations
and I'm hoping that what they get from me will be the truth.
I've no need to tell people lies.
I have no need to embellish things.
Hopefully they will win my trust in due course when I tell them
something that, actually, it is what it is.
It's June, three months since the floods,
and Moorland is still quiet.
Most of the 120 flooded homes are still drying out.
But there's activity going on at Maria's house.
The insurance company refused to pay out, but ironically,
they are on track to be the first family to move home in the village.
I'll tell you what, as nice as this sink is,
but my back kills me every morning, every lunchtime, every tea-time.
How long have you been living in the caravan?
Three months.
Three months! It's unbelievable. Three months it's been.
The Mayes have had a bit of good news.
A building company's stepped in to help uninsured flood victims
and they've offered all their labour for free.
I feel extremely lucky,
it might sound awful, with my insurance being voided.
I now feel the lucky one to have my house, probably, or it's happening,
ready before somebody else's who has got insurance,
because they're waiting for, um, you know,
the insurance to come through, they have to choose their builders,
they have to wait for estimates, they have to do all these things.
I didn't have to do all that.
But their life's possessions are still stacked up in their shed.
It breaks my heart, it really does.
It's going to be another day of sadness,
to find out what's got shoved under here.
It's amazing, it's the first time I've done this.
Oh, dear God.
My sewing box. Little sentimental things like that,
you know, you think, "Why? Why did they take this away from us?"
That's gone. You can't repair that.
It's all rusty and...
Despite the Environment Agency's effort to show that the flood
was nature-made, their explanation was not accepted.
I'm still very, very angry about it.
I can't...
I can't seem to say, "Oh, well, it's happened, we'll forgive you.
"Let's not do it again." No, I can't do that.
The work at Phil and Lana's house is being paid for by their insurer,
but progress feels painfully slow.
It has come to a little bit of a halt
because we were hoping to have got in by August, but I can't see it now
until October at the latest - at the earliest, I should say -
so yes, it's a little bit frustrating.
I haven't been that well, I must admit.
Sorry...
You know, there's some days I just couldn't come over.
It was just...just too much.
I have been to the doctor's about it
and I've had a really bad skin condition
and I just didn't know what it was, and they put it down to stress.
Phil and Lana bought their house as a wreck in 1974 for £6,000.
They brought up their two children here.
It was, and is, very precious to us. And it IS very precious to us,
and we've looked after it and it has looked after us as well
because we saved this house in the beginning. It was condemned.
No-one would give us a mortgage for it
but we knew we could do something with it.
We were only young, we were only in our 20s.
We worked very, very hard on it.
We actually went for ten years without any kind of holiday.
We didn't have a holiday. Because we didn't have any money.
It's not just a home to us. It's... It's us. It's very precious to us.
Local farmers are suffering too.
But before Mary and Brian can rebuild, they have to demolish.
Going all through this, it's a bit trying and this and that,
but at the end, we'll have a nice new set-up.
This is the final comedown.
After that, it's build-up, isn't it? Yeah, that's it.
I've no doubt we shall get there. Yeah, yeah.
Mary and Brian were born here in Somerset.
Back in the 1950s, they were keen members of the Young Farmers.
They met in their early 20s at the Chard Agricultural Show dance.
I danced with one or two, like you did back then.
Then Brian came over. "Oh, this is different."
And straight away...
..that was it. It was as instant as that.
And ever since then, we've built everything together.
By early July, the builders are back in nearly every home in the village.
What's happening?
But at Rose Cottage, the rebuild is already over.
Isn't anybody here yet?
Today, Maria gets her house back.
Oh...
SHE SOBS
It's five months since the Mayes left their flooded home.
Getting all the plaster off. Do you remember?
All this plaster came off. And that one with her mum.
It's a chance to thank all the volunteers who helped
the couple rebuild their home.
THEY LAUGH
I know a lot of you are here today, and from the bottom of our hearts
we'd like to thank each and every one of you
because we couldn't have done it on our own. We couldn't be where we are
and we're so far ahead of the game
compared to a lot of poor people that are insured
that are having a hell of a job with their loss adjusters,
I just... We just want to say thank you very much.
Yeah. Hear, hear. Thank you.
How are you doing? Are you OK? Are you happy now?
Yes, yes, yes, happy tears. Feel better now?
PNEUMATIC DRILL WHIRRS
At the Old Rectory, it's a different story.
Although Bryony Sadler's insurance are paying up,
there's a major problem.
It's just all massively unacceptable at the moment, you know.
Our life is imploding - big-time.
Why? What's happened?
Er, since you guys were last here, we've had builders for a week
but the insurance company is now not paying.
They've pulled all the funding for us
because the loss adjuster has put our rebuild at about 100,000.
Well, it's come in at 183.
You know, there's people in the village that were uninsured
that have gone home. The people who are insured
and have got reasonable people helping them to get home
are nearly home, and ours hasn't even bloody started, so...
And this is the rest of the house!
SHE LAUGHS
Bryony and Gavin bought their house in 2002 for £330,000.
They renovated the property together to create their dream home.
I wish to God we weren't actually insured
cos then we would have had the volunteers do it for us
and we would be home...
..rather than sitting like this.
This is real life on the Somerset Levels, you know.
I've worked tirelessly to get the rivers dredged.
Well, they're being dredged. Can I get home? No.
It is a massive mess.
It's high summer and the villagers are still scattered to the winds.
It's a concern for Jane Haslam, the vicar of Moorland.
I think it just throws everything, everything you know.
You know, in a job like this and in every other job
there are routines that you get used to, and common requests
that you know how to respond to.
But something like this just totally throws you, really.
As Jane's flock's been scattered far and wide,
she's organising a summer party to bring them back together.
Oh, they'll love that.
MUSIC AND CHAT
It's the first time the village has gathered as a community
since the floods.
Have you seen the state of it?
Do you like stuffing or not?
No, I don't want any, thank you. Crackling?
If they said to me, "Do you live near a drain?"
and if I knew there was a drain, I would have said yes.
Yes, yeah. But I didn't. I had no idea.
But they didn't even consider my honesty
and say, "Look, we'll come round and give you...something."
Nothing. Nothing at all. They didn't bother.
Is it true that they tried to repay your premium?
They have repaid our premium for four years.
THEY WHOOP AND LAUGH
If you don't have insurance, you get your house fixed...
Yeah. And you can move back now.
And you're back now for the summer holidays. You're back for the summer.
With the kids, yeah. If you pay out your insurance... Yeah...
..you have to then wait six months before they even do anything.
You can't even... Yeah. So tell me how that's right.
No, it's not right. It's not right.
So what's the point of having insurance?
The party that we had last week for Maria and everything coming back,
it was such a bittersweet...
I sat, I went home and I cried.
I cried because I thought I'm so happy for Maria because...
I know, because she's doing what I would give my back teeth,
to have my kids back in the village for the summer holidays - oh!
Every day, the builders are working in the village, eight till five.
And Phil and Lana make a daily pilgrimage to check up on progress.
This is our normal lunch every day. Yeah.
Sometimes it's in the middle of the building works,
but today it's a lovely day, so... God, those tomatoes are lovely.
We'll have to continue having rolls, I think, every day,
cos we've been so used to them now. We're hard-wired for rolls now.
SANDER WHIRS
And there's some news in the village.
A family have sold up at half price,
but one person's misfortune is another's opportunity.
This is normally the bit where you start swearing.
A new family's moving in.
To us, it was an ideal opportunity
to look at buying something that we've always wanted.
Rachel Selway and Peter Lane were attracted by the space
and rural lifestyle for their young family.
We are excited. I'm looking forward to getting all my livestock
and just having a country-life existence, so...yeah.
They're adapting the house to withstand future floods.
We'll have very basic furniture in the house
and then hopefully with all the notice that you'll get,
we can start lifting it up in the barns and getting it out of level
and we're going to set it higher than the water went this time,
cos obviously they said it was catastrophic this year,
the volume that came through.
So we can only do as much as we can. Nature will be nature.
And last year, nature did wreak havoc.
Their house was the most severely flooded in the village.
Bryony Sadler has finally persuaded her insurance company to pay up.
It's just bashing your head against a brick wall the whole time
and I, you know, this wasn't meant to happen,
they were meant to be playing ball
and doing whatever we wanted, because at the end of the day,
it wasn't our fault and it wasn't our water
and I will carry on saying that till my dying day!
Every time I come back, I look at that poor, sorry mess
and wonder what's going on.
Every week, Bryony meets with her loss assessor.
It's his job to manage the work and liaise with the insurance company.
There are problems inside.
That's been moved. You want that over to the right, don't you,
this part here?
I want... Correct? Correct or not, yeah? Yes. Yeah, OK.
That's going over on Saturday.
Right. So they're moving that over on Saturday.
But the biggest problem
is future-proofing the house against flooding.
Did we find somebody else to lay the flooring?
No, they've spoken to three carpenters,
or wood flooring specialists. It was all highlighted in that e-mail.
Where do we end with this? Just sit and wait?
How did you fit it last time?
Gav. Does he want to do it again?
Yes, he would do it again.
It's just not how it ought to be any more, you know? We...
We want to come home, and, um...
(I've had enough.)
Everything's come back at us. The water wasn't our fault.
The mess in our homes isn't our fault, you know.
The argument with the paint, the argument with the tiles,
the oil tank, the wood flooring,
it always comes back down to us and it's just so negative all the time -
there's no, you know,
you have one tiny piece of positive followed by 4,000 pieces of negative
and "Oh, you sort it out."
I know how annoyed you are and everything about it
but it's just... I can't...
It's something that's completely out of my control.
I need to hit something.
# We plough the fields and scatter
# The good seed on the land... #
It's autumn and it's harvest time on the Levels.
# But it was fed and watered by God's almighty hand. #
The land reclaimed from ancient marshes has provided
a bountiful harvest for decades.
It's an annual ritual for people to gather together.
This year, it's all a bit different.
It's very strange, isn't it, Mary,
that we have to do these in someone's garden this year? Yes.
Instead of having it in the village hall, isn't it, Margaret? Yes.
And we don't have...
Also we are going to be missing the lovely auction
of all the goodies that normally we have, you know,
it's not going to be there this year
because nobody's got anything growing. No gardens.
What time is the service, Margaret? What time does it start? Five.
Hang on, one pickled onion on there.
They're not done. These are.
Because the village hall was so badly flooded,
this year, it's al fresco.
How are you getting on with your house, Mary?
Not so good, Margaret, not so good. Not so good?
No, we have subsidence now, they've discovered. Oh, God.
So they've got to dig right down all round,
kitchen floor's got to come totally up, right out,
cos it's cracked right across.
ROOSTER CROWS
Shush!
THEY LAUGH
Harvest loaf?
Harvest loaf! Here. Yeah?
I've got a better one than that.
I didn't bring it in.
I didn't cos I bought it in case we didn't have enough rolls,
but as you can see, we've got plenty of rolls.
But I've got a big cottage loaf. OK, we'll have that as well.
Do you want that as well?
I'll take my little one away. I made that this afternoon!
Oh, good, that's all right, then, that's what we'll do.
That's what we'll do. I forgot to bring...
Doesn't matter. Cheers. Cheers!
Back in your house yet? No. We are hoping for mid-October.
Right, ladies and gentlemen!
We're going to have a lovely harvest celebration
and then enjoy a feast together.
Um, and we know it's not what we usually do,
but it's still lovely to gather together in this community
and celebrate God's goodness and his blessings at this harvest time.
ORGAN PLAYS
# We plough the fields and scatter
# The good seed on the land
# But it is fed and watered
# By God's almighty hand
# He sends the snow in winter
# The warmth to swell the grain... #
Despite not being back in their homes,
the age-old sense of community appears to have survived the floods.
It's just like Songs Of Praise, isn't it, really?
THEY LAUGH
It's wonderful to see the village all together because it's...
I think we've got a unique, a unique community spirit in this village.
Everybody's very friendly
and very supportive of one another, would you agree? Yeah.
And you know, to come together on such an occasion is great.
The change of season's a cause for concern. October brings more rain.
At Battens Farm, demolition has finished
but rebuilding hasn't begun.
Mary and Brian are still living in a caravan,
but they're far more concerned about their animals' living quarters.
DOGS BARK
We're not in a proper routine. We can't see to things,
it's very difficult.
It makes it harder work.
Never mind, we keep hoping we're getting there
but we're just hoping and praying these buildings will come now
because, um, we've got nowhere to bring the animals in to.
It must be a little bit of a worry, all of this.
Little bit?
Huge worry. Yeah.
Yeah. Um...
We just haven't got to stop and think about it.
It's very easy to go under.
Yeah.
It's November, nine months since the floods.
Most of the people are now home
and finally, the Sadlers are returning too.
There's going to be a lot of unpacking later!
There's, er... Yeah, there's seven months' worth of stuff there
and that's only half of what we've got to fit back into the home,
so, yeah, I'm glad I've split it over two days.
Nice to see it home, though.
And the future brings new challenges on the horizon.
Some people have faced crippling bills to renew their insurance
and all of them have seen the value of their houses plummet.
Big problems now are,
are we going to get house insurance in January?
If we are refused, what the hell do we do with our mortgage?
Are we then going to get repossessed?
That is the next three things that are going to come out of this,
people are going to get their houses repossessed - I'm guessing -
because we can't get insurance,
nobody wants to touch us with a bargepole.
Then if you've got no insurance, your mortgage is invalid.
Well, if your mortgage is invalid
then surely people are going to start losing their homes,
and that's outrageous!
My ideal life is, luckily, ideal,
but I'm going to be stuck in it for the entirety
because it's worthless now
because people don't want to buy houses down here.
Hello! Daddy!
Hello, what's this? "Working hard in numeracy,
"multiplying two by one-digit numbers." Excellent.
Hello, how was primary school?
Oh, look, Daddy. What have you got?
You've got a superstar award for being helpful and kind? Well done.
Hey, guys. Hey, guys, welcome home.
Oh! That's a nice kitchen!
Mummy go upstairs! Yeah, just let Daddy take his boots off.
Yippee!
Yes, it's amazing to be home, but how long are we going to be here?
Where do we go if we need to come back out again this winter?
Hopefully this winter they're not going to let it happen,
but five years down the line, we can easily be left.
And where do we go next time? Well, buy a boat.
Who knows?
The new couple are planning for exactly that scenario.
They bought their house and land at auction in July.
We are preparing for the water to come through again.
My brother's helping us put a second floor up in the barn,
mainly so we can put a higher level up,
higher than the floodwaters came through in February,
and we can put all of our belongings up
and we can then know that everything should, in theory, be safe, be dry.
We don't have flood insurance, so we need to be thinking sensibly
and keep everything, as much as we can, safe.
If we don't flood, it's a bonus but, um...
..I'd say we probably will.
And we're prepared.
But some of the families are having difficulties adjusting.
The Mayes were the first to move home in July
but for Maria, what makes a perfect home has changed.
It doesn't feel like home,
although we have our own little things around us,
but what we had and has travelled with us all our lives is gone.
The memory's gone, and the house doesn't feel right.
I don't feel happy. I really would like to move.
I don't think people are happy. They all have new homes,
they all have, you know...
Their homes have been refurbished, revamped or whatever, we all have.
But is it really home? No, I don't think so.
It's going to take a while before I could call this home,
and I don't want to call it home. I don't like it.
But Phil and Lana, who've lived in their house for more than 40 years,
are just happy to be home.
It's lovely to be back in your own home, obviously.
Even if we haven't got anything.
Even if we haven't got any furniture at the moment.
It's a bit of a squat, is this.
Yeah, we're going to be squatting for about two weeks.
It's a happy squat. Yeah.
We'll be camping out for the next fortnight, I expect,
till all our furniture comes back, but I don't care.
We're home, that's all it is. We're home.
And in the village that we're very, very fond of,
amongst neighbours that we're very, very fond of.
There we are, my dear. Cheers. Cheers.
Hope it's never going to happen again. No.
It's that one.
Back doors are locked, are they? Yep.
Right.
This is our home. This is where we want to be.
We don't want to be anywhere else.
And we're going to be here forever. We have no plans on moving. No.
They will carry me out in a box.
THEY LAUGH
That's what's missing.
As 2014 ends, the people of Moorland can look back on a tumultuous year,
and 32 families still haven't moved back home.
Ready? How does it look?
Yay!
New pumps have been installed, the rivers have been dredged,
and the waterways are coping well with the current rainfall.
But it's always at the back of people's minds
that the floods could return again.