An elderly woman who collapsed during the Remembrance Service in Chippenham on Sunday still managed to hold her two-minute silence – from the back of an ambulance.

Peggy Dunsford, who lives in a Chippenham care home, was not the only casualty at the service as paramedics also had to tend to a 12-year-old boy who hit his head in the Market Place, as well as a man in his fifties who collapsed in a shop doorway.

All three were taken to hospital and 80-year-old Mrs Dunsford said it had been important to her to pay her respects despite her “funny turn”.

“Two of my cousins were shot down during the war when they were in the RAF, so it has always been important to me,” she said.

“My husband Mervyn served in the Middle East too during the Second World War as part of the Royal Artillery. I always go out and pay my respects, whatever I’m doing at the time.”

Emergency care assistant Steve Faulkner said it had been an eventful morning.

“It was very lucky that three of us were driving past at the time,” he said.

“We were actually on our way to Calne for stand-by, but we wanted to go and pay our respects in Chippenham before.

“Our path through the town led to a marching band having to move to the side of the road.

“People were parting like the Red Sea to let us through, so it was a bit of an entranace.”

Mr Faulkner said he and his fellow crew members Andre Pilling and Mike Barrett were impressed with the strength and dignity of Mrs Dunsford.

“She was absolutely fantastic,” he said.

“We tried to respect her wishes to maintain the silence as much as we possibly could.

“We sat her up in the back of the ambulance so she could look out of the window and see the service as she was asking us what was going on.

“We were all happy that she got the chance to see it all, as she’d wanted.”

Although an ECG reading of the patient’s heart indicated it was normal, the clinicians still decided to take Mrs Dunsford to Great Western Hospital in Swindon as a precaution for further checks.

The paramedics were then called to treat the 12-year-old boy and a man in his fifties.

Mr Pilling went to the aid of the injured boy, while a paramedic from RAF Lyneham and St John Ambulance volunteers treated the man until two further ambulances arrived.

Mr Faulkner said: “We were very grateful they were able come to our aid.

“Obviously our concern was that all three patients received rapid treatment.

“But hopefully without causing real disturbance to everyone else attending the Remembrance Day Service.”