LINDA Luxon was a happy six-year-old living in West Minster when the floods came.

"I'd had my birthday party the day before and remember begging my parents to save my teddy bear, which they did," she said.

"But my screams were nothing compared to those of my uncle who had been sleeping on a makeshift bed in a downstairs room.

"He had been a prisoner in the infamous Changi gaol and still had nightmares about his treatment there. Waking in the dark and tipping into three feet of murky water from a sodden mattress made him hysterical."