A headteacher told a driver to move an ambulance from outside Culvers House Primary School in Hackbridge as paramedics were saving the life of a cancer patient.

Lynne Smart-Steel was unhappy the vehicle was blocking shut school gates, even though there were no free parking spaces in Orchard Avenue.

Her demand stunned the family of Colin Burdon, 72, a retired caretaker who was taken to St Helier Hospital 20 minutes after the crew arrived to find him breathless.

His wife, Topsy, complained the delay could have been critical when he suffers from emphysema and has had bladder cancer diagnosed.

She was particularly upset because she claims to have silently endured repeated noise disturbance from the neighbouring school.

She said: "You don't stop an ambulance when it is on a life-and-death mission.

"The headteacher told me there was a meeting, but you can rearrange a meeting, you can't rearrange someone's life.

"I have been here for 37 years and never moaned when, sometimes, it feels as though 40 school alarms are going off, at all hours of the night. This has really got my back up."

This week a school spokesman said the ambulance driver was asked to move the vehicle three feet forward because the school gates are an emergency exit.

He added: "When the driver refused, the headteacher did not repeat her request. She also went round to the lady's house last week with some flowers to personally apologise for any offence that had been caused."

Mrs Burdon declined the gift, saying it came a fortnight too late.

London Ambulance Service confirmed that its vehicle had parked in front of the closed school gates for about 20 minutes last month.

"In the interests of patient care, the crew parked the ambulance in the safest available location to tend to the man as quickly as possible," a spokesman said.