Once upon a time districts had Medical Officers of Health. Who is now responsible for keeping an eye on community infections? The dog, or the cat? – Owl

It began as a conversation at the school gates. I was chatting with the other mums just after the May bank holiday, exchanging stories about what we’d been up to.

Tanya Matthews www.thetimes.co.uk 

“We all had a stomach bug — the whole household was struck down with it,” said one. Someone else had had the same thing, cramps and bad diarrhoea. Another had a vomiting bug. In truth, my stomach was starting to feel a bit dodgy, too. At the time I thought nothing of it: there was clearly a bug going around at school.

It wasn’t until the following Friday — with my symptoms getting steadily worse — that I started to think something might be amiss. The school publishes weekly attendance figures for classes each Friday, and that week the numbers were unusually low — about 82 per cent. I thought, that can’t be right.

Sage, left, only drank rainwater and was fine. Nala, right, drank from her bowl and fell sick

My stomach cramps were intensifying, so I tried to drink more water to flush it out. They only got worse. One neighbour went to her GP with severe diarrhoea and was told to stay hydrated. That it was probably food poisoning. One by one, on Ocean View Drive, my street in Brixham, Devon, people were falling ill.

It wasn’t just people, either. Vets have been just as busy as GP surgeries. I have two cats — Sage, who will only drink rainwater, and Nala, who drinks from her bowl. The latter was struck down with vomiting and diarrhoea. I thought that seemed a bit strange.

Last weekend I started to notice that the water coming out of my tap tasted disgusting: horrible and metallic, like chemicals.

On Monday, I found out that one of my neighbour’s three children had been taken ill over the weekend and admitted to hospital with severe dehydration. He was hooked up to an IV drip. Her other son was also ill and is in the middle of his Sats exams.

So on Tuesday last week I called South West Water and asked them to take a water sample from my home. They told me that there had been 15 recorded cases of cryptosporidium — a microscopic parasite — in the area, but reassured me that it had absolutely nothing to do with the water supply. That it was fine to drink. When I got off the phone, I said to my husband: “Something doesn’t feel right”.

With the water company denying culpability, I took matters into my own hands. On Tuesday evening before bed, I wrote a post on the Brixham Facebook page. Had anyone else been experiencing symptoms of a tummy bug? Could it be the water?

When I woke up on Wednesday morning I had 1,200 comments on my post. Everyone was joining the dots together. Finally it all made sense.

Later that day, South West Water came to take a sample from my tap. When I got to the local supermarket, every bottle of water was sold out. I couldn’t get any from anywhere. People were driving for miles to stock up. Later that day South West Water were still reassuring people that the water was safe to drink.

On Wednesday, South West Water finally admitted that the water wasn’t safe to drink and that cryptosporidium was widespread. It is affecting 16,000 households in the area. But for us, at least, the damage has been done.

There are a lot of elderly people in Brixham and many can’t get to the shop to buy water. For people with learning disabilities and dementia, it’s all very distressing. One friend who is on medication for low kidney function has been told he must stop his medication while he recovers from the illness. He is now going to hospital for further blood tests.

I’m now on day 12 of the illness. I’ve never experienced anything like it. My husband Michael is just at the beginning — day four. We’ve both had norovirus in the past, and it’s worse than that. I have four children, three living with me at home, and luckily they have been fine.

One small upside is that the community spirit has been wonderful. Water points have been set up, which we’ve been told we will have to use at least for the next six days until it’s fixed. My local fruit and veg shop is giving water away for free and one Brixham resident has spent £400 of their own money to hand out water. I’ve lived in Brixham for 11 years, so it’s comforting to see everyone pull together.

Unsurprisingly, though, people are also furious. Some schools are closed, and for a community that relies heavily on tourism, it could be awful for businesses. The water company misled us — denying there was anything wrong for days. It took our community to get together to work out the truth, but only after hundreds of people had fallen ill. When this is over, South West Water will have a lot of questions to answer.

As told to Katie Gatens