Dennis and Pamela Watson had only recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary when a collision at Three Holes near Wisbech took her life.

Mr Watson, who had been driving their Citroen Saxo across the A1101 at the junction with Silt Lane on September 22 last year, said: “I just do not remember pulling out”.

Their car was struck by a VW Golf driving towards Outwell after pulling out of the junction into its path.

The couple, of Maple Grove, March, in Cambridgeshire, had been out in King’s Lynn with friends for the day and were returning home around 6.20pm.

“We were not in a rush and had nowhere to be,” Mr Watson told Norfolk Coroner’s Court. “I stopped, looked right and left, noted the road was clear – and from that point I don’t remember anything else.

“I just do not remember pulling out. The next thing I remember was being in the ambulance. It was then they told me she had passed away.”

He told the court the pair had met in school at 14 years old and married in 1956.

“Apart from my time away doing National Service we spent almost every night together. I feel very lost without her. Losing Pamela in the accident has had such a devastating effect on me I am now under the care of my GP and I have been diagnosed with depression.”

Guy Sandis, driver of the VW Golf, had been working at the Fred Hartley estate in Upwell and was on his way home to Newton. “I had negotiated bends in the road when I saw a vehicle at the junction to my driver’s side five metres or so from the road and travelling around 15-20mph,” he told the court.

“I continued, unsure with any certainty of what speed I was doing, when I noticed the other vehicle was not stopping at the give way. I was not concerned and believed the driver would go into the middle of the filter lane.

“50 metres or so from the staggered crossroads the other car doing 5-10mph was not heading for the filter and was rolling out into my lane. I had already decided not to brake, believing the other car would turn.”

PC Paul McKay, in the collision investigation report, said the primary factor in the collision was “Mr Watson crossing into the Outwell-bound lane”.

“The exact reasons for this remain unknown,” he said.

Senior coroner Jacqueline Lake recorded a conclusion of road traffic collision.