AFTER delivering hundreds, if not thousands, of babies in the Petersfield area and beyond over her 35 year career, community midwife Carmel Crabtree is retiring.

An emotional Carmel, who says she has loved every minute of her job, said goodbye to more than 60 colleagues during a strawberry tea held at The Grange maternity centre at Petersfield Hospital where she worked.

The 61-year-old mother-of-four and grandmother of four, known as ‘Cammie’, read out a humorous poem about her job to assembled current and retired midwives, care assistants, doctors and mothers with their babies.

Carmel has often been delighted to deliver the babies of those she originally delivered.

She has also seen many changes in the service, particularly with everything now being computerised.

“There is one constant though despite all the changes and that is that mum and baby have always been the priority and have the best care available,” she said.

She has seen trends come and go too – water births are popular now, with dads taking the plunge too, as is hypnobirthing which introduces hypnotherapy techniques for the pain.

Home births have made up a good percentage of the deliveries she has carried out.

After training as a midwife in 1979 in Guildford, Carmel started work at the Grange Maternity Home in Liss.

“The flying squad was the method of transfer,” she recalled, “with lights flashing and sirens blaring while transferring to St Mary’s, in Portsmouth.”

She moved to The Grange in Petersfield around 20 years ago, and has completed a BSc honours degree in midwifery while working.

Although Carmel will miss her rewarding work and her colleagues, she is looking forward to walking more, relaxing and enjoying life with her engineer husband, Robert, and her family.

She leaves The Grange at the end of this month.