A TINTERN hotelier spoke of her relief today that her friends are safe after being rescued from their building in the flood-hit village of Boscastle which is now being cleaned up.

Sue Cooke, above, who runs the Wye Valley Hotel in Tintern with her husband Barry, are good friends with Pete and Margaret Templer - the couple who own Boscastle's Riverside Hotel which was in the heart of flooding in the picturesque north Cornwall village.

"We were very worried to begin with but we managed to contact Pete and Margaret and they were okay," said Mrs Cooke.

"We even saw them being interviewed on the news. "We used to know them when we lived in Oxford and we often go to Boscastle to visit them."

Mrs Cooke revealed that the Templers used to run a teashop in Boscastle and only recently acquired the hotel.

"It is a real shame because they only just had the place refurbished," she said.

"I think they are now waiting to see the extent of the damage. "We have every sympathy with them because when our cottage was flooded, we had a lot to worry about with insurance and so on." Mrs Cooke said she and her husband would offer their friends as much support as they could.

"We haven't really thought about what we might do but I will be contacting them later on to see if they need anything," she added.