A PAIR of pensioners acted as snow Samaritans for frail neighbours in their street.

Barbara Watts and Pam Chatfield have been helping the elderly in Devon Road, Shrub End, Colchester, by fetching their prescriptions and going shopping for essentials like milk and bread.

Barbara sets out with her dog and walking stick to get residents anything they need.

Touched by their acts of kindness, Betty Bambrick, 85, one of the ladies they helped, answered the Gazette’s appeal for stories of snow heroes.

She said: “Lots of us are in our 80s and, in this weather, I don’t know what we’d do if it wasn’t for Barbara.

“Fortunately, she is fit and healthy and can manage to get about when we can’t.”

Many of the residents in Devon Road, where there is a large block of sheltered housing, need mobility scooters to get about.

Lyn Barton, Colchester councillor for Shrub End, recently persuaded highways engineers to pay for resurfacing of the street.

But work is yet to start and now the snow and ice has made it doubly difficult for householders to head out on errands.

Mrs Watts said she was embarrassed, but flattered, to be singled out for praise by Mrs Bambrick.

She added: “I am happy to help my neighbours because in these conditions there is just no way they can go out to the chemist or to the shops.”

Cyril, 70, joins men to keep traffic moving with a push

A GROUP of men, including a 70-year-old, who spent two hours pushing stranded cars up a hill, have been hailed as heroes.

There were scenes of chaos as cars struggled to make it along Old Heath Road, near Colchester’s Whitehall Industrial Estate, on Friday morning.

Ros Whiting, a speech and language therapist on the Grange Way estate, was on her way to work when her car ground to a halt along with dozens of others.

She said: “All of a sudden the cars stopped and the pace was slower than a crawl. When I finally got to the roundabout that leads on to the estate, cars were getting stuck or sliding on the hill.

“It was complete chaos, but there were three gentlemen helping each car that had got stuck up the hill, and as soon as one car was free they would move on to the next car.

“They were moving the stuck cars on so everyone else could get moving.

“Without them, there would have been long tailbacks and, more than likely, a few accidents. They were absolute stars.”

One of the men was Cyril Elmes, the 70-year-old maintenance manager for Heath House, in Grange Way, Colchester.

He and two others were pushing cars from 7.30am until 9.30am, when council gritters took over.

He said: “People just couldn’t get up the hill. There were already two gentlemen pushing the cars so I thought I would give them a hand.

“There were so many cars stuck, it was unbelievable.