A CAR crash victim who suffered memory loss following an accident took steps towards recovering her past by arranging a reunion with her former schoolmates.

Sue Baker, of Shaw, near Melksham, was unable to remember much of her life before the age of 17 following an accident at Limpley Stoke in 1967, in which her friend Geraldine Coates died.

Five former school friends, from as far afield as Germany, were at Ms Baker's home in Shaw Hill on Saturday to talk about their time at Oldfield Girls' School, in Bath.

Ms Baker, 55, decided to arrange the reunion after Jane Parker, a former schoolfriend, phoned up out of the blue.

She said: "Jane got in touch with me in March after seeing my family name at a shop in Bath. My ex-husband worked there and put her in touch with me.

"We chatted about old times and decided it would be quite fun to get girls from school together and this is what has happened. Now it's a case of having memories fed back in."

Ms Parker said she had always wondered what had happened to Ms Baker, nee Nixey.

She said: "I was in Bath soon after leaving school and she happened to mention that she had had this accident.

"As I was talking to her she was taking shards of glass out of her arm. I was so surprised that I had not heard anything about it.

"Then I moved out of Bath and I often wondered if I would ever see her when I came back to the city."

Another friend, Heather Gladhill, who lives in Yorkshire, contacted Ms Baker after reading about her efforts to contact school friends in a newspaper.

Ms Parker said the reunion was important to Ms Baker as she tries to piece together her past.

"I think it's really important especially because I feel she needs to build up her own story, her own narrative and it's really important to have that support of people who knew her when she was younger," she said.

The evening, which was recorded by Radio 4, will be broadcast in March as part of the Home Truths series.

Ms Baker said: "The organisation was stressful, but it was for a laugh and an opportunity to do the things we had done at school."