Water company splashed outafter floods like this in Dunstable

But surviving photos of the time show nothing more serious than dozens of children in swimming gear enjoying the thrill of being splashed by passing traffic.

This picture was taken by Gerry Sieling who must have been standing on the wall of the parish hall in Church Street.

It was published in Pat Lovering’s book, Dunstable In The Eighties.

It is particularly interesting today because it pictures, across the street, the old Ashton St Peter’s Lower School.

This was founded in 1861 with funds provided by Mrs Frances Ashton.

The school transferred to West Parade in 2006 to enable the Aldi supermarket to be built.

Before the Church Street land was redeveloped, an evaluation was carried out in 2004 by Oxford Archaeology which found evidence of a possible Roman pit and signs of much medieval activity.

Its detailed report has just been made available on the internet.

>Yesteryear is compiled by John Buckledee, chairman of Dunstable and District Local History Society.

> Severe flooding in Church Street was a problem for many years until Anglian Water invested more than £1million in 1996 installing an underground storage tank and deep flood-water drains to carry surface water away.

The system generally worked well, but flooding under the Church Street bridge closed the road in May 2006.

The water company said it was “unlucky timing” as heavy rainfall came when a pump in the system needed replacing