'It was like a hen night, not an evacuation!' The people rushed out of their homes in the dead of night come together in the face of Storm Franklin

Sat, bundled up and bleary eyed, around empty cups of tea and coffee sprawled across a table is a group of elderly neighbours.

They have been evacuated from their Northenden flats in anticipation of Storm Franklin hitting Greater Manchester in force, and rare 'danger to life' warnings being put in place.

It's been a long night for them - and a dramatic one.

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At 9pm on Sunday night, February 20, they were warned they may have to leave their homes, several of them ground floor apartments, for fear of being flooded.

They were moved to Didsbury Mosque shortly after, where they remain 12 hours later.

But while some anxiously wait to see what is in store for them back at home, and admit that they 'don't know what they're going back to', a handful revel in their unexpected evening.

The eight residents taken in by the mosque have a collective age reaching into the hundreds.

They have seen far worse, they say, than anything a bit of flood water could do, as one man recounts the 'freezing cold' of being evacuated from his school during the Second World War.

Joy Adams, 83, told the Manchester Evening News about the moment she was evacuated from her flat in Boat Court.

"It was announced over a at around 9pm that we might be evacuated, then another one to tell us that we were, in fact, to be evacuated," she said.

"The instructions were to go and get our stuff ready, and then we left at about 10pm, got here at half past.

"The people here have been very good, helping us with our bags, giving us tea and coffee. The rest of the night was ours.

"They sat with us laughing and talking."

A far cry from a bleak evacuation, the small group were treated to pizzas and biscuits - and exchanged stories and songs with those volunteering