Family hit by Cumbrian floods say it's just a case of 'pulling together' at Christmas

A family is "pulling together" after the Cumbrian floods devastated their home.

Campbell and Julie Hannah's family are spending the festive season in temporary accommodation.

Their living room, where their Christmas tree once stood, is now a muddy hole in the floor covered by a tangled web of wires and pipes.

The eight inches of sewage-contaminated water that came "gushing" through the doors and floors has left the downstairs in ruins.

The family took as much as they could upstairs in the house, but tables and other furniture had to be sacrificed.

As Christmas Day arrives, entire floors in rooms downstairs are still being pulled up.

They are just one family among hundreds left homeless and living in temporary accommodation after Storm Desmond hit on December 5.

Many will wake up on Christmas Day to the four walls of a Travelodge room or a B&B.

But Julie, 33, and 21 weeks pregnant, her husband Campbell, 48, their two daughters, Jasmine, aged three, and Darrelle, 24, - along with their unborn baby girl, and Tess their Collie dog, will get some respite from the "heartbreaking" stress and mess of the floods - and they will at least be together.

The Hannahs will have their Christmas dinner in a bungalow in the Cumbrian countryside outside Carlisle, as work goes on restoring their large Victorian home in Warwick Road in the city, one of the areas hit worst by the floods.

There is no place like home but the temporary accommodation, provided by Mrs Hannah's employer Pirelli, will at least be warm and dry.

Mr Hannah is working day and night to get their home habitable again - their baby is due in April.