Winchester grandmother Karen Barratt never thought she would be staging her fourth anti-mobile phone mast vigil in 2004.

She has held a 24-hour protest every year since 2001, in objection to plans for a 39-ft mast on her doorstep in Byron Avenue, Fulflood.

Karen and her husband Mike, who is battling cancer, staged the latest vigil at the proposed mast site this weekend.

"While the mast threat hangs over this community we will go on reminding Orange that we're still here and we're not going to just creep away," she said.

Karen, with dozens of other residents, is protesting over health fears for children at nearby Western Primary School.

Orange's plan was initially turned down by Winchester City Council, though the phone company later won the right to put up the mast on appeal.

That decision prompted two parents of pupils attending Western Primary, Caroline St Leger Davey, of Chilbolton Avenue, and Diane Harrison, of Poets Way, to lodge a formal legal appeal at the High Court on behalf of their children Phoebe and James. The hearing has been scheduled for November 10.