John and Priscilla Barnes were killed in the accidentTWO people were killed and four injured in a head-on crash on a notorious stretch of the A36 dubbed 'death valley'.

Retired HGV instructor John Barnes, 80, and his 62-year-old wife Priscilla, died at the scene of the smash near Codford on Monday afternoon.

The couple's daughter, Linda James, 48, and son-in-law Ivan, 53, from Radstock, Somerset, survived with minor injuries. The family had been travelling back from a weekend holiday on the Isle of Wight when their Vauxhall Cavalier collided with a Ford Fiesta travelling from the Warminster direction.

The driver of the Ford Fiesta, an 83-year-old woman from the Basingstoke area, was airlifted to Salisbury General Hospital and has since been taken off the critical list. Her daughter was also treated for minor injuries.

Monday's crash, in an area known locally as 'death valley', takes the number of deaths to nine in six collisions on the A36 since February 2003.

The married couple leave behind four daughters, 11 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Grandson Gareth Barnes said: "Words cannot describe the way we all feel after this tragic loss. Two of the world's greatest grandparents are now only joyful, happy memories that will be with us all for the rest of our lives."

Mr and Mrs Barnes were from Shepton Mallet, Somerset, and had been married for 40 years.

No further details have been released on the driver and passenger in the Ford Fiesta involved in the crash.

Police are now investigating the collision and are asking for witnesses to the accident to come forward.

Inspector Cavan Moroney, divisional traffic manager, said: "We are in the process of taking statements from other drivers travelling in both directions at the time of the collision.

"At this moment we do not know what went wrong. We are still investigating but we do not believe either car was driving with excessive speed.

"We have had nine deaths in six collisions on the A36 travelling through the district of west Wiltshire between February last year and today.

"A number of these in the main are all due to driver error, it is very difficult to blame a specific road. But we always study fatal road collisions to find out if there was a fault with the road and work closely with the highways management at Wiltshire County Council."