Mum of four, Matilda Entwistle, from Station Road in Dorking*, had to be rescued by three fire engines, fourteen police officers and the entire mountain rescue team from Snowdon, flown in especially on a coastguard Sea King helicopter (pictured).
"It was lucky I could reach my phone," said Mrs Entwistle, 47. "I may have had to use the flashing light thing they teach scouts as I was holding my mirror at the time. But I could reach my phone, which was easier, as I would have had to learn how do that flashing light thing with a mirror, and it wasn't very sunny."
Matilda had been putting a few extra things in her handbag when it reached critical mass and exploded, leaving her buried under the contents in the middle of the precinct, scattering pigeons and shoppers in equal measure.
"I had one or two bits and bobs in there already," she said. "It was quite heavy. It's because I've got four kids you see."
According to Matilda, she doesn't actually keep the children in the handbag.
"But what with tissues, and plasters, and Calpol and spare clothes and my little-un's bike, the eldest's scooter and our Chloe's dissertation on Robert Louis Stevenson for her Year Six homework, it was a little full."
Additionally, there were all the things the modern woman requires when out on a shopping trip, such as twelve hundred keys (the use for which is only known for three of them, and they're on their own key ring), more make-up than Debenhams, sanitary products (just in case), combs, brushes, hair straighteners and a ceramic foldable hair dryer.
"It has to be foldable," said Matilda. "Otherwise it wouldn't fit."
Matilda was also carrying some money in a purse, three quarters of a metric tonne of plastic in the form of credit, debit, store and emergency breakdown cards.
"I have two emergency breakdown cards," she said. "One for my car, the other for me. I can get quite teary sometimes."
Being a modern, security concious woman, Matilda also was carrying a whistle, mace, pepper spray, a taser and a collapsible aluminium baseball bat.
"I had just put my phone in, when it blew," Matilda said. "I knew I shouldn't have got a Galaxy Note. I should have gone for a smaller phone."
Shoppers in Dorking watched as a team of people rescued Matilda from her personal mountain and was winched to safety. Three police vans were used to transport the contents of her handbag back home. The handbag itself was last seen hurtling towards the Irish sea. The Mount Snowdon mountain rescue team have very kindly agreed to pick it up on their way home and post it back to Matilda, if she'll stump up the three quarters of a million pound postage.
* And if there really is a Matilda Entwistle from Station Road in Dorking - Empty your handbag - especially if you are forty-seven.
