A grandmother who saved a child from being hit by a train has made an urgent appeal to parents.

Nora Bancroft was walking home along Keighley Road, Skipton, when she saw a young child standing next to the railway track.

Mrs Bancroft and her friend, Margaret Ferguson, shouted at the blond-haired boy who took fright and backed off seconds before a train shot past.

“I was screaming and shouting at him, we really needed to frighten him to stop him going onto the track,” she said.

“Luckily he scarpered back under the wall and just as he got back, the train came.”

Mrs Bancroft and Mrs Ferguson had been walking along Keighley Road at 5.30pm when they saw the boy on top of the boundary wall at the edge of Burnside Recreation Ground.

They were concerned that he would topple off the wall and called across to warn him.

But as they watched, he jumped off the wall, went under a fence, made his way through long grass and stopped on a raised platform next to the track.

Yesterday Network Rail repaired a hole at the bottom of the fence which, it is believed, had been made deliberately to allow access to the track.

Mrs Bancroft said she was convinced the boy’s intention was to cross the railway.

She said: “I was ready to go over to him, but Margaret knew there was a train about to come, if she hadn’t stopped me, I would have been hit. We were all panicking and had to make a decision what to do.”

Mrs Bancroft has been alerting parents in the area and has contacted Skipton Town Council as well as the police.

She said she wanted to make them aware that their children could be playing close to the track.

Les Chandler, Skipton Town Council officer, said he was sure that Mrs Bancroft had saved the child’s life.

The town council contacted Network Rail three years ago about the potential problem with people crossing the track to get to Snaygill. At the time, Network Rail put up a high security fence running alongside the recreation park’s boundary wall.

Mr Chandler said the fence had stopped most people from crossing the track. “Network Rail have done a good job of the fence, however, people are still getting round and the only way that could be stopped is by having the fence all the way to the station,” he said.

A Network Rail spokesman said workmen would repair the fence. She said Network Rail took safety seriously. “It appears the fence has been deliberately vandalised to get access,” she said.