Pickering - badly hit when the town's beck burst its banks last year - is rushing to back the Evening Press campaign to Save Ryedale From Flooding.

Householders, a pub landlord and the curator of the town's Beck Isle Museum have all told how their lives were disrupted by the flood in March 1999.

And more than a dozen shops and pubs have already agreed to carry our petition calling for urgent action to tackle the flooding threat in Pickering, Malton, Norton and Stamford Bridge.

Landlord Peter Fisher's pub The Rose was flooded time and again by the adjacent beck when his predecessor, Peter Warriner, was in charge of the pub.

He says he would welcome action to save him going through the same mess and loss of trade, and he is carrying the petition on his counter and displaying our posters.

But Mr Warriner, who suffered three floods in his last three years in charge of the pub prior to his recent retirement, says it will not be an easy task for the Environment Agency. "Something needs doing but there are no easy answers," he warned.

He said that each time the beck came in, he lost several days business and faced a big clearing up operation. "It was fairly clean water, but it still left a layer of silt. The Fire Brigade were brilliant. They helped each time it happened."

Householder Michael Saul, who was the first Pickering resident to sign the petition, said his home in Mill Lane had been marooned for several days when the beck burst its banks, covering the road outside his home to a depth of a couple of feet.

Neighbour Stuart Harrison said the floodwater came to within a few inches of entering his home, lapping the top step by his front door. And when "idiots" came driving by in 4-wheel drives, the waves they created could splash into the home but for the sandbanks he laid in front of the door.

He feared the problems would worsen in Mill Lane under plans to remove a bridge upstream, which tended to dam back some of the excess water.

Gordon Clitheroe, curator of the Beck Isle Museum and also chairman of the management committee, is putting out the petition for visitors to sign.

He said several out of the outside displays, a new toilet block and a new education centre at the back of the museum, were flooded last year by the adjacent beck.

* Do you have any flooding nightmares to tell? Ring reporters Simon Horsborough and Richard Edwards on 01653 690690, or drop into our offices at 22 Yorkersgate, Malton.