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The New Bookshop in Cockermouth has been left "devastated" by floodwaters, which have caused most of its stock to be damaged.
Talking to the BBC, Catherine Hetherington, the owner of The New Bookshop said: "I'm devastated, but I expected it to be bad and it is bad, we've lost all the stock downstairs."
The shop floor is now "knee-deep in books", with the shelves left barren by the surging floodwaters that hit Cumbria after bad weather last week. Hetherington said she was yet to speak to the insurance company, but said that she would have to "start again", after the business being in the family for 40 years. She added: "It's all got to be thrown away because it's all water damaged."
Hetherington said the business would be restarted with, "a lot of support and help from the town and our friends and our customers and my staff, we'll get there in the end. I think it's going to be hard and it's going to be long."
She added: "I am really shocked now I've come in, but you just have to get on with it really and hopefully we'll be back bigger and better than before... I think it's going to take some months because it's all got to be gutted and refitted. It's going to be such a diffeerent town for Christmas, it's not really a Christmas for most of us."