A mother of three was found more dead than alive with serious stab wounds after her husband deliberately dived under the wheels of a train - just days before the couple planned to return to India.

Preetam Kaur was discovered lying in agony in an alleyway by an elderly neighbour and was rushed under a police escort to the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester where she underwent a five-hour operation. For hours, her life hung in the balance before she made a slow recovery - initially unaware her husband, Gian Singh, had committed suicide.

A detective sat by her bed throughout the night until she regained consciousness and she was able to make a statement.

Police had already recovered a bloodstained knife close to where she was found by 82-year-old Elizabeth Cave who had at first thought shouting was merely children playing.

That is, until she stepped outside.

She told the Echo: "I found her covered in blood and at times she was clutching her stomach. She was moaning and waving her arms in the air."

She called another neighbour who looked after Mrs Kaur while she rang the police.

The tragedy happened as one brother-in-law had gone to London to collect plane tickets. Another, standing in the couple's kitchen, spoke of Kaur's mood swings.

Harbajan Singh explained: "He had threatened to kill people in the house before. Sometimes he appeared to be mad. I understand she was making tea when this happened. Their eldest son tried to intervene but his father threatened him and he ran off in fright."

Mr Singh had arrived in England six years earlier in 1960 but his family only re-joined him a few months before his death.

At an inquest a week later on July 7, 1966, the coroner heard how his wife had given a bedside statement to a police officer naming her husband as the man who had attacked her with a carving knife. She spoke of a quarrel in their kitchen over his intent to kill himself and of her desperate attempt to make him see his brothers when they came home. 

But in vain. He launched his furious attack on her before changing his clothing and rushing to the railway to commit suicide.