A portable hand held controllable and directable liquid pumping device including a vortex pump head (1) fitted to a first end (2) of an elongate flexible drive shaft (3) and a pump drive (4) fitted to a second end (5) of the flexible drive shaft in which the pump drive includes a substantially rigid elongate housing (6) for a portion of the drive shaft and the elongate housing includes a first handle (7) at or near the first end (8) remote from the pump drive.