LOVING grandparents had to cancel their long-awaited family holiday after the grandmother tripped on a loose paving stone in Leatherhead High Street.

Pauline Burgess, 67, and husband Ken 68, had saved from their pensions for a year to join 10 other family members for a special get-together in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea.

But their trip was ruined when grandmother-of-four Mrs Burgess fell and broke her pubic bone after the cracked slab sent her flying on Monday, August 9.

Mrs Burgess, of Canon Grove, Fetcham, said: "The family are all really disappointed.

"They said they wouldn't bother to go any more but I told them not to be silly."

The rest of the party – their daughter and son in law with their two children, their son in law's parents and their own son's two children – left for the fortnight's break on Saturday.

The couple are furious that such an obvious hazard was left in the road and plan to lodge a compensation claim with Surrey County Council.

Mrs Burgess said: "I am angry because it's not the first time people have said something about it. They seem to waste so much money on other things and don't do a good job on what they should be doing."

Mr Burgess said: "Our neighbours have said that we can't let this go, we've got to do something."

The council told the Advertiser it could not comment on specific cases. Mrs Burgess's accident happened at about 9am at the bottom of Leatherhead High Street.

After being helped to a bench by two passers-by, she began to slip in and out of consciousness, much to the distress of grandson Nathan McCleave, 8, who was with her.

Mrs Burgess said: "What I'm most upset about is my little grandson, he was so upset. A kid that young thinks that you're dead and he was crying when I came to again.

"I think it will live with him for ever – he's a sensitive boy."

One of the people assisting Mrs Burgess helped her call her husband, but halfway through explaining what had happened, she passed out again.

Worried Mr Burgess ran a mile from their home to the high street to be at his wife's side, just months after he quit smoking.

Mrs Burgess said: "I was about to have my blood pressure taken but I said to the lady in the ambulance, 'I think Ken needs his taken more than me.'"

She was immediately rushed to Royal Surrey Hospital, near Guildford, for treatment before being transferred to Leatherhead Hospital where she was kept in for intensive rehabilitation until last Thursday.

Mrs Burgess is now on a strong mixture of codeine and morphine to deal with the pain and is expected to take at least six weeks before she's back on her feet unaided. But despite their ordeal the couple wanted to pay tribute to all the people who helped them through their ordeal.

Mrs Burgess said: "I would like to thank the two people who helped me. They were ever so kind."

Mr Burgess added: "We would also like to thank the ambulance staff. They were first class, and the nurses at the Royal Surrey and Leatherhead were also absolutely dedicated."

The state of the high street's pavements is a hot topic in the town and there have been many calls them to be fixed.

Hubert Lewis-Carr, chairman of the Leatherhead Residents' Association, said: "There is a lot of disgust about the state of the high street.

"Some years ago, it won worst high street in Britain, which it didn't deserve, but it called attention to the problems and a lot was done. But now I think it's beginning to slip back again."