The family of orphaned children Ann and Steven Sloane have promised to support them in every possible way.

Ann, 16, and Steven, seven, lost their mother and father in Saturday's M25 coach crash. Chris and Karen Sloane were two of six people to lose their lives in the crash.

Ann and Steven's grandparents, David and Margaret Fletcher, say the family is pulling together to take care of the children and will continue to do so.

Their son, Anthony, hopes to care for them in the long term.

The Fletchers said the family already had problems to deal with before the tragedy. Mr Fletcher is partially sighted and both Ann and Steven have learning difficulties. Steven also has Attention Deficit Disorder.

Mr and Mrs Fletcher live in Fairfield Road, Evesham, just around the corner from Fairfield Place, where their daughter Karen lived with husband Chris and the two children.

Mr Fletcher, 63, said he felt it had not yet sunk in with Ann and Steven that they had lost their parents.
"Steven hasn't cried," he said. "He's acted normally and just turned round and said 'If you look at the sky, there's two new stars. That's my mummy and daddy'."

He added: "Ann did say 'What's going to happen to us?'
"When we said that we would see her and Steven all right, she left it at that."

Mrs Fletcher, 61, said she was trying to stay strong for her grandchildren's sake, but losing Karen had been a shattering blow. Her daughter had loved going on the coach trips with Chris.

She said: "The kids would have been with her if it hadn't been for the fact that she wanted to buy some Christmas presents for them and so didn't want them to know what they were."

The last time Mrs Fletcher spoke to her daughter was at 9.30pm on Saturday, when Karen rang on her mobile from Dover. Her daughter was a Manchester City fan and Chris a West Bromwich Albion supporter. Both were keen to know their teams' scores.

It was not until 4am the next morning that Mr and Mrs Fletcher knew they had died, when police arrived at their door. Since then, the couple say they have had a huge amount of sympathy from the community.

A joint funeral for the Karen and Chris will be held at St Andrew's Church in Evesham, followed by cremation in Cheltenham, though a date has not yet been fixed.

Chris, and Graham Spring, were sharing the driving as the WR Spring & Son coach returned to Evesham after a day trip to France.

The coach ploughed through barriers between junctions 15 and 16, near Slough, and crashed down an embankment at 11.25pm.

Mr Spring, 56, of Northwick Road, Evesham, and passengers Norma Evans, 54, from Badsey, and Bernard Coppin, 62, from Drakes Broughton, near Pershore also died in the crash.

Police have named the sixth victim as Jane Margaret Wedgbury, 39, from Alcester, in Warwickshire, who died on Tuesday.

Of the 40 other passengers who were hurt in the crash, at least three remain in hospital. At Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, a woman is still critical but stable and a man is comfortable.

One woman is also stable at Hillingdon Hospital. Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow has been unable to confirm whether a man taken there with an eye injury has been discharged.