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An elderly couple have offered a reward to anyone who can find their lost car after they forgot where they parked it on a hospital visit.

Friends and family of Emmanuel Elliott, 81, and partner Hilda Farmer, 79, have spent days trawling the streets around Cheltenham General Hospital without any luck.

But they don’t believe it has been stolen because Hilda has yet to find the “well heeled” Cheltenham road where she left her silver Ford Fiesta, reports GloucestershireLive .

Now they are asking others to try and locate the car which they believe will be a topic of conversation in the street where it is parked.

(Image: GloucesterLive/ WS)

“If it was Gloucester I’d know exactly where it was,” said retired nurse Hilda who was driving her partner of ten years to hospital when she became lost in the spa town which is currently gripped by road works.

“I’m a Gloucester girl so Cheltenham is like a foreign land to me.

"If I have to go there, I normally go on the bus.

“I feel really stupid about the whole thing and we are really missing our car so I hope we can find it.”

Hilda actually paid for a parking space at the hospital before learning the car park was full so dropped retired company director Emmanuel at the door for his appointment with a consultant.

(Image: GloucesterLive/ WS)

She believes she had to travel a mile or two on busy roads to find a space where she could leave the vehicle on the street at around 2.30pm on Friday.

She cannot remember the name but recalls it was on “a street with really nice houses on one side and some kind of greenery on the other.”

“The houses had drives with cars parked on them so I was the only one in the spaces across the road and they were alongside a green space, maybe a park or a field,” she said.

“As soon as I saw it I thought ‘Oh goodie, I’ve got somewhere to park’.

“I think I must have asked four or five local people to point me in the direction of the hospital and they all told me it was down this road, so maybe somebody remembers talking to me."

It took Hilda about half an hour to find her way back to the hospital and meet with Mr Elliott.

“When he’d finished I went looking for the car but could not find it,” she explained.

“I think he thought I’d run off to Spain because I didn’t come back for ages. I couldn’t even call him because my mobile was in the car.”

(Image: GloucesterLive/ WS)

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After giving up she returned to the hospital, which is known for its parking problems, and the couple called relatives to take them home to Gloucester.

Since then family and friends have joined the search without success and in desperation they have offered £100 to the first person who locates the Ford Fiesta - registration EJ12 VSP and lets them know.

t took Ms Farmer about 30 minutes to walk from the car, so it was probably "within a mile and half" of the hospital, Mr Elliott said.

Police had told them they were "fairly confident" the vehicle will still be where it was left and they just have to find it, he said.

“It was a very, distinctive street, so hopefully that description will help us find it“ said Mr Elliott.

“From what I can gather it’s a small, upmarket road so somebody is probably looking out of their window right now and wondering what that car is still doing there across the road."

The couple have asked anyone who spots the car to contact police.