An 87-year-old great grandmother was thrilled when a bike shop replaced her stolen bicycle after hearing of her plight in the Surrey Comet.

Gladys Coxon was distraught when thieves stole a second bike from outside her Chessington home, and she pledged to give up cycling because she did not want to part with more cash just for thieves to strike again.

But, after reading her story in our paper, Evans Cycles kindly stepped in and offered her a top-of-the-range replacement, complete with a basket to transport her shopping.

Craig Outhwaite, the Kingston store’s manager, said: “When we read about Gladys’s bike being stolen for a second time, we immediately wanted to help.

"Bike thefts happen all too frequently, but this one was particularly cruel given her age and that she relies on it to do her shopping every week. Seeing how delighted she was when she tried it out in the shop was fantastic.”

Mrs Coxon’s great-grandaughter Rosie Eggleton, 21, who took her to try the bike last Friday, September 17, said the family called her “Supergran” because of the amount of cycling she did.

She said: “She does give us a heart attack sometimes doing things we don’t want her to, like climbing ladders.”

Mrs Coxon has always cycled, since she was a little girl, and she said during the war she remembered cycling while air raid sirens were going off, and being ushered inside to safety.

She said: “When I moved from Surbiton to Chessington, I’d strap my one-year-old daughter on the back and cycle to Surbiton every day.

“I cycled there just to get out because I hated Chessington at the time, but I had no money because the war had just finished so I couldn’t choose where we lived.”

PCSO Patricia Read, from the Grove safer neighbourhood team, met Mrs Coxon at the shop to mark her bike.

The marking means if her bicycle was stolen, police would be able to identify and return it more easily.

Mrs Coxon said: “My old bike was lovely, I really loved it. But this new one is great.

“It really affected me when my bike was stolen. It’s not the cost, it’s the shock. This has made up for it and I’m really grateful.”