Charlotte Mooney

I was driving home.

I'd been away from home for about a week working in Portsmouth and it had been a really hard week so I was desperate to get home.

I had my four-year-old daughter in the back of the car and we were just rounding the final bend of the A3 about five minutes from my house.

And the second we turned the corner, I knew that something was deeply wrong.

It was like a giant hand had scattered the traffic in front of us.

Cars were headed right and left, and all of the horns were blaring.

And then I saw that walking right down the central lane towards my car was an old man.

I was probably going at about 50 miles an hour, and I slammed my brakes on, and somehow I managed to stop when he was only about a meter from me.

He didn't break stride.

He kept walking straight back right up to the car until he rested his fingertips on the bonnet.

And then he kept going around the side up to the driver's windows.

He was small, mid-70s, and well-dressed with a button-down jacket and a hat.

He bent his head through the window and he said to me, I'm so sorry, I'm just going for a walk.

And then he took three steps back, and a car came between me and him.

My daughter was in the back, wide-eyed, and I tried to reach to him and call to him, but by that time, he was off.

He was weaving a line up the A3 through the cars.

I drove home as quick as I could.

I left my daughter with my partner, and I rang the police, and they said that they'd send out a car, but it would be about 15 minutes.

And when I called them back 15 minutes later, they said, oh yeah, we couldn't find anyone matching that description.

He's probably wandered off.