A PENSIONER has thanked quick-thinking Budgens staff and the kind members of the public who rushed to help his wife after she collapsed in the street.

When Derek Hall arrived to meet his wife Joyce on Snakes Lane last weekend, he was shocked to find her lying on the pavement surrounded by a concerned crowd.

It is thought that the 82-year-old grandmother, from Woodford Green High Road, blacked out as she was waiting for her husband, falling on her face and twisting her hip and wrist.

Checkout girl Gauri Bagne, 25, was one of the first on the scene.

She said: "I didn't see it happen but I think she was trying to get on a bench to wait for her husband.

"She was injured badly on her hand and she was bleeding from her nose.

"She said she had pain in her back and neck and she couldn't move her jaw properly and her finger was black and blue.

"I stayed with her for about half an hour until the ambulance came and I was asking if she wanted any tea or coffee because it was quite cold.

"It was no problem though. I couldn't have left her on her own."

Despite Guari's modesty, Mr Hall contacted the Guardian as he was keen to thank her and the many others who rallied around his wife of 59 years.

He said: "When I arrived I was charging around all over the place and I was very worried.

"She has never fallen before but the people who looked after her were great.

"There were all sorts of people doing all sorts of helpful things and phoning for the ambulance.

"It was very kind of them all and I just wanted to say thank you because most of them I have no way of getting in contact with."

He added: "I went back to the bench the other day and noticed that it was right on the edge of a paving stone so that might have contributed to her fall.

"I'm not looking to sue anyone or anything as people of our generation just get on with things, but I pushed it back to where it should have been so it should be ok now."

Mrs Hall is still shaken and bruised from her fall but seems to have escaped any serious injury.

Council comment to come.