SLEEPYHEAD Tanya Foxton says her neighbour Jane Brown probably saved her life after she slept through a smoke alarm at her Pewsey home at the weekend.

Mrs Brown called the fire brigade after hearing the smoke alarm going off at about 7am on Sunday in Miss Foxton's home next door in the High Street.

She was unable to wake Miss Foxton and could smell smoke so she dialled 999. Fire fighters were at the terraced house within minutes.

Print shop manager Miss Foxton was unaware that a towel had fallen on to her cooker in the kitchen downstairs and was smouldering.

Neither she or her elderly dog who is partly blind and deaf were woken up by the shrill bleep of the smoke alarm.

They did not wake up, either, when firefighters forced their way into the house after Mrs Brown dialled 999.

Miss Foxton, who works for Sedgwick printers close to her home, woke up to find firefighters in her bedroom and an overpowering smell of smoke.

She said: "I was fast asleep in bed and I did not hear a thing until the firemen shook me and told me to wake up.

"My old dog was asleep too in her bed in the bedroom."

The terraced house was beginning to fill with dense smoke and the firefighters led Miss Foxton and her dog out of the house and put them in the warm cab of their fire engine while they dealt with the smouldering towel in the kitchen.

Leading firefighter Chris Wootton who was awarded a long service and good conduct medal the next day said two firefighters went into the smoke-filled house wearing breathing apparatus.

Miss Foxton said she possibly owed her life to her neighbour's keen hearing and to Mrs Brown calling out the fire brigade instead of just ignoring the smoke alarm.

She said: "My thanks are due to Jane and the fire brigade for possibly saving my life."

Mrs Brown said: "It makes you realise how important smoke alarms are."