THE effects of the floods will be felt by farmers for 12 months to come, said one man who saw cattle being swept away at the height of the storm.

Ridley Armstrong, who farms at Old Bridge End in Acomb, was among the dozens of people who spent Saturday moving livestock to safety in a race against time.

While he managed to get his cattle, sheep and horses off his land in the nick of time - thanks to the friends and neighbours who rallied around - he realised at least one farmer hadn’t been so lucky.

“I saw some Limousin cattle going down the river,” he said. “You could just see their black shapes as they went by.

“Other people have seen sheep going downstream as well, although I don’t know where they came from. It could have been either the North or South Tyne as they were both as bad as each other.”

Despite the devastation all around him, it was the sense of community spirit that will long stay with him.

“We were watching the water rising and realised at about 3pm that we were going to have to evacuate the livestock,” he said.

“We had nine horses to get out, to begin with, so I rang one of my friends, Davy Carr at Highwood Farm.

“I literally gave him 15 minutes and he did it. He made it down our track with his wagon.”

With the help of friends from the village, Ridley turned his cattle out and had just managed to round up some of the sheep that had strayed after his fences came down, when the water reached the farmhouse. Unable to get back up the driveway, the Armstrongs spent the night at the Carrs’ place in Hexham.

The low-lying areas of Old Bridge End Farm, which borders the Tyne itself, are still under water and Ridley fears they will remain so for a few weeks yet.

When he spoke to the Courant on Tuesday, his sheds were so full of debris carried in by the floodwater that his immediate challenge was rehousing the stock.

Chief among his considerations was the high health of his 30-odd longhorns, as well as the health generally of all his cattle and sheep.

“I’ve had offers to take them in, but I don’t want to mix them with others, because pneumonia is a big issue.

“The wet and unseasonably warm weather creates the worst of conditions for cattle, even those that are inside. Once pneumonia has got into a shed, it can run riot and young stock are most at risk.”

He’s had little option but to sacrifice his fields and turn the cattle out, knowing it will result in a shortage of grazing next spring. “We’ll be feeling the knock-on effect for the next 12 months,” he said.

John Smith-Jackson, of Hightown Farm, Melkridge, watched as water cascaded over the A69 at around 3pm on Saturday and rolled towards him.

“We could see it coming and we knew we had about half-an-hour,” he said. “We piled all the silage bales up to act as a barrier, but it gave way with the force of the water.

“Before long there was about 3ft of water in all the buildings. It was unbelievable - it all happened within an hour.”

The first thing John did when he saw the water rolling across the fields was dash to the cul-de-sac of houses at nearby Middle Lipwood to warn the residents. It gave them time to at least move what they could upstairs.

He then returned to check on his livestock.

“Fortunately there weren’t any calving cows and the youngest ones are three or four months old, but by the time I returned they just had their heads sticking out of the water.

“It was the force of the water, the current, coming through that was shocking – you had a job to stand up in it.

“I never want to go through that again.”

He moved 30 of his 150 or so head of cattle to a shed on the highest area of his farm and was just grateful that this time round, the storm hadn’t snuffed out his electricity. He was able to light his way in the otherwise pitch dark.

All the cattle are back in their relatively dry sheds, but John’s concern now is their health. “The biggest worry is that they have caught a chill and you worry about pneumonia,” he said. “Two of those calves were shaking.”

He is also one of the many facing a major clean-up operation. “We’ve got a lot of fences and trees down, boulders that have been deposited and, well, just a lot of debris in general,” he said. “But that will all have to wait until the land dries out enough.”

Much of the water that had flooded his farm and the land round about had been funnelled along the Tyne Valley railway line and then forced out at colossal pressure when it hit the pinch points presented by the three railway bridges in the area.

“There’s such a big hole in the ground, it looks like a bomb has gone off under one of them,” he said.