TICKETS for a ferry to a Thai tropical paradise smashed by the tsunami changed hands the day before disaster struck.

The England family, of Heysham, should have been travelling on a ferry to the island of Koh Lanta at the time the huge wave hit on Boxing day.

But they decided to spend one more day on the beach at Surin before heading off and gave their ferry tickets to a Swedish family they had befriended Says Patricia England: "We had become very friendly with them and the father was an environmental scientist who was due to come to Lancaster University in January to give a lecture.

"Now we don't know whether they have survived or not it is terrible and we are desperate to find out.

"We were supposed to meet up with them when we got to Koh Lanta but we could not go and had to stay put in Phuket."