A couple spoke about their terror as they were caught up in flash-floods as they lunched at Boscastle.

Cheryl and Philip Knight, of Layer de la Haye, were half-way through their holiday in Cornwall when they headed to the picturesque fishing village.

They ended up fleeing the water when two inches of rain fell in just two hours. The couple took refuge at the home of a terminally-ill man, who they helped rescue crews winch to safety.

Recovering after their ordeal at a caravan park 40 miles away in Saltash, Mr Knight said: "It is a bit of a leveller when you think of nature and its force. I kept expecting Bruce Willis to jump out this kind of thing doesn't happen to us here."

They were about to tuck into their lunch when the water started rising and they helped staff pile up sandbags.

Mrs Knight said: "The next thing the doors just came in, we all had to get upstairs. It was so scary. There were cars coming down past us."

The couple and a family of four - grandmother, daughter and two granddaughters from Roxwell, near Chelmsford - escaped through the back of the restaurant, scaling a rock face, before finding refuge at a house on higher ground.

Mrs Knight, 44, who owns the Mulberry Bush Montoressi Nursery in Melrose Road, West Mersea, said: "Cars were crashing into the front of the house. The noise was horrendous. It was like it was happening to somebody else."

Published Wednesday August 18, 2004

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