A pensioner described today how her sister was killed as she went to collect her pension.

Joan Hood, 78, died in an accident with a car outside the White Hart Inn as she made her way to Catsfield Post Office, near Battle, along the B2204 last Thursday.

Miss Hood and her sister Helen, 79, lived together just a few minutes from the Post Office.

Neither woman was married and both were midwives before they retired more than 20 years ago and settled in the village.

Helen Hood said: "She had been to the pantomime in the afternoon in Bexhill with the people from one of those day centres and when she got back she set off from the house.

"I heard some police cars and thought it was funny because it was the first time we had heard them since the New Year.

"I was still in my slippers and I thought it must be my sister because she had been missing for an hour. I saw her shoes."

Miss Hood said she thought her sister had broken a leg but was told later she had died at the Conquest Hospital, Hastings.

Joan Hood was a midwife from 1950 and worked at Eastbourne District General Hospital and St Mary's in Eastbourne.

The sisters worked at Pembury Hospital, Kent, and retired in 1979.

Police today renewed their appeal for witnesses to the accident and anyone with information should contact Sergeant Kevin Donovan at Bexhill Traffic Police on 01424 456085.