A Towy Valley grandmother has slammed the authorities after her grandchildren failed to get home in the heavy snows last Friday.

Veronica John, of Gwenfe Road, has criticised Llandeilo's Ysgol Tre-gib and the police after nobody bothered to inform either the children's parents or grandparents that the youngsters had been left with another parent.

Veronica spent four distraught hours trying to find 13-year-old Abigail and Jack, aged 11, before they eventually called home safe and well.

"We phoned everyone we could think of to try to find them," said Veronica. "We were absolutely frantic."

Veronica's daughter Michelle, who works in Bridgend, was informed by the school that the youngsters had been sent home because of heavy snow just before 10am.

Michelle contacted Veronica at 10.10am to ask if she could take care of the children.

But the youngsters had still not arrived by lunchtime.

"At this point the children had been missing for more than two-and-a-half hours," said Veronica.

She claims she phoned the school but was outraged at the lack of help on offer.

"They just said that as far as they knew, the children had got on the bus," she said.

"They just wanted to get home themselves and the police were no help either.

"I called the police to ask for help, but I was told that they would not contact the mountain rescue team as the children were not up a mountain. The girl on the phone asked if I expected her to go out and look for them herself."

At 1.30pm - almost four hours after the children had left school - the police finally contacted Veronica to say that the youngsters had gone with a friend's mum to Ammanford.

"It seems that the parent picked them up with her own children after they were dropped off by the bus," said Veronica.

"The situation was ridiculous - we were absolutely frantic.

"The school was just not interested and the police were no help whatsoever.

"I just want to make sure that this kind of thing never happens again - to my family or anyone else's".