Pupils and staff at St Nicholas School at Baydon have been coming to terms this week with the death of teaching assistant Diane Wright.

Mrs Wright, who had two daughters aged 20 and 17, was killed in a head of car crash as she drove from the school to her home in Wootton Bassett last Thursday.

She died at the scene after her BMW was involved in a collision with an Audi Quattro being driven towards Baydon on the B4000 Ermin Street.

The emergency services were called just before 3.45pm to the stretch between Foxhill and Baydon Headmaster Peter Chambers said: “Diane was a valued and dedicated member of the school staff and will be greatly missed by the whole school community".

The driver of the Audi driver has not been named, although police said she was another 40-year-old who lived locally.

She received fractures and was taken by ambulance to the Great Western Hospital in Swindon.

Police closed the road and operated diversions for several hours while investigations were carried out.

Wiltshire Coroner David Ridley was informed of the tragedy and an inquest was opened and adjourned yesterday.

Mrs Wright lived at Woodshaw in Wootton Bassett and used the B4000, a Roman Road with long straight stretches, to travel to and from school.

Her husband David was a policeman in the Metropolitan force for 32 years and is now a sergeant in the London Borough of Hillingdon.

The couple’s eldest daughter, Tracey, is in her second year studying illustration at the University of Plymouth and their younger daughter Lucy is in Year 13 at Wootton Bassett School.

Mr Wright said: “Di was friendly and outgoing, always bubbly, always happy. She was so generous and not just to me. She was generous to her family and friends.

“She was a lovely wife and my best friend We, her family and friends, are absolutely devastated.

“We are all finding it difficult to come to terms with her unexpected death.

“Words cannot describe the way we are feeling. ”

He spoke of the many foreign holidays they had enjoyed together.

He said: “For the last eight years we’ve been on numerous holidays in the Caribbean and St Lucia, and Egypt. She loved music and cooking, gardening and animals. We were both into the 1960s and 70s.

“She liked to bake cakes. She liked doing unusual and fattening ones. She was just a good, all-round person.”

“We had booked a holiday skiing. She’s not the best at skiing. We were going with friends over Christmas. I don’t know if I will go now.”

The family has planted a rose on the side of the road where the crash took place. Alongside it is a home-made plaque, a photo of Mrs Wright and a card made by one of her students at Baydon St Nicholas School.

See also the obitary.