An 87-year-old UK woman who was stuck in her bath for four days has been saved after a waitress at her favourite café realised she had not come in for three days in a row and called the police.

Doreen Mann had been having a bath when she became trapped and couldn’t lift herself out.“It was frightening in a sense because I didn’t know how long I would be stuck there,” she told the local newspaper.

But when Sonia Congrave, 39, a waitress at Tomassi’s in Southend, hadn’t seen Ms Mann come in for her usual cup of tea and piece of cake, she raised the alarm with the authorities who visited her house and heard her shouting out.

The pensioner kept herself warm by covering herself with towels or topping up the hot water.

“She is a really strong woman – all she wanted afterwards was her cake and a cup of tea,” Ms Congrave said.

The pair became friends after Ms Mann began visiting the restaurant ten years ago when her late husband was moved into a nursing home.

Ms Congrave now has a spare key and plans to buy Ms Mann a mobile phone just in case of future emergencies.