A TILL receipt from a Minehead shop turned out to be a lifeline for two Italian visitors to the town when they were cut off by a rising tide and faced near disaster.

Oberdan Cosimi and Patrizia Castellani were walking along the beach from the bottom of Countisbury Hill to Lynmouth with their springer spaniel dog Nino over the jubilee weekend when they realised they had been caught out by the incoming tide.

"We got about halfway when the rocks were just too perilous for us to clamber over so we decided to turn back," said Oberdan.

"But then we realised that we couldn't go back or forward - we were stuck."

Although the couple, who were staying at Malmsmead on Exmoor, had a mobile phone with them, they had no idea how to call the emergency services.

With Patrizia becoming increasingly distressed, Oberdan started looking through his wallet to see if he could find anything with details of how to get help.

But all he had was a receipt from Minehead's Boots store, which the couple had called into during a visit to the town a couple of days earlier.

"Luckily it had the telephone number of the shop on it, so I called it," he said.

At first, poor reception made conversation difficult, with the line constantly cutting out.

But after two or three failed calls, pharmacy dispenser Pat Askwith dialled 1471 to get the number.

She finally managed to contact the distressed holidaymakers and quickly realised they were in trouble.

Pat immediately alerted the coastguard service who, after making contact with the couple, dispatched a Sea King helicopter from RAF Chivenor to airlift all three of them, including Nino, to safety.

Rescuers were able to pinpoint their exact location after Oberdan had given them an Ordnance Survey reference.

After taking them off the beach, the helicopter landed on the top of the cliff where coastguards were waiting, although the couple were able to make their own way back to their car, which they had left at Countisbury.

"We were stuck on the beach for about half an hour and my wife was screaming and crying," said Oberdan. "We were just so grateful that help came and so grateful to Pat."

And last week before the visitors headed back to Tuscany and their home near Pisa, they called in to Boots to meet up with Pat and give her a box of chocolates.

"It was lovely to see them," Pat told the Free Press. "I was quite upset by the incident because I didn't find out until the following day that they had been rescued.

"They are a lovely couple and I was just glad that I was able to help. It was really lucky that they had kept the receipt."

Despite their ordeal, Oberdan, manager of a landscape and gardening organisation, said the experience had not put them off England.

He has been to the country around 25 times, with Patrizia, a fine art decorator, notching up at least a dozen visits.

In fact, the couple even added an additional three days to their two-week break.

"We love England and we particularly love Exmoor, which we were visiting for the second time," said Oberdan.

"It was very touching to meet Pat - we are so glad to know her."

Photo: Steve Guscott