Wraysbury Dive School may have been offering scuba lessons but no one seemed to be panicking yesterday. Most of the occupants of this quiet riverside community are seasoned flood veterans. Yet, even for them, something was strange about this latest crisis. It was the wrong season; they may be used to the Thames encroaching every so often, but not at the height of summer. "It is quite an odd feeling," said Tritia Tompkins. "My memories [of floods] are of quite frosty days in winter."
Wraysbury is no rural outpost but a Middlesex village under Heathrow's flight path. Yet yesterday it was on the Environment Agency's danger list, the most at-risk spot in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.
Julia Bruzas had her canoe ready for the worst possible scenario. Her home, a countryside cottage beneath a windmill, had been swamped in 2003 and already the gentle stream beside it was gorged with fast-flowing water. "We are waiting for it to happen," said the 37-year-old caterer. "You can't stop it so you just prepare yourself and get your stuff out of the way."
At the nearby pub, the new managers Pete and Sandy Smith - flood novices compared to their neighbours - were watching with trepidation. "We are just hoping we only get a bit of it in the garden. Excuse the pun but we are banking on it not coming into the pub," said Pete. In the last major flood, four years ago, locals had to use boats to cross the cricket pitch yards away from the bar.
On Friary Island, flanked by the Thames and a canal, June Hendry, 73, was watching water engulf her garden and quietly thanking the surveyor who suggested building six feet higher when her home was gutted in the 2003 floods. Other homes nearby were not going to be so lucky. After four decades without a serious flood, she said, this was her third since the millennium: "The river is up three feet; it's terrible."
Local authorities are operating the Jubilee River Flood Alleviation Scheme and a self-help flood group is standing by. Sandbags have been distributed and everyone informed of the threat. Many residents, however, say the new Jubilee system is having a detrimental impact on smaller villages. A Horton and Wraysbury councillor, Colin Rayner, said: "This is not a time for blame. If you are on Titanic and you have hit an iceberg, you focus on getting everyone off before you shoot the captain."