Blonde 25-years-old, Mrs Marion Cook, said: ‘The baby’s coming' as a neighbour, at midnight, started to drive her and her husband 16 miles to a maternity hospital at Cuckfield, Sussex.

Her husband, a former Tank Corps sergeant, told the neighbour to keep on driving.

He remembered that he had seen the film ‘Birth of a Baby’ in 1941 and so. leaning over the back of the front seat and using towels, scissors and a length of nylon trimming which Mrs Cook was taking to hospital in a workbasket, he aided the baby’s arrival.

He then remembered another medical film, ‘The Citadel’, and so held up the baby by the heels, slapped it into life and wrapped it up.

Thevcar reached hospital 20 minutes later and the matron congratulated 32-year-old Sidney Cook as she took charge of a 6.5lb girl born a month prematurely.

Both mother and daughter were doing well.

Brisbane Telegraph, 6 January 1948, P1

Newborn baby. Wikimedia public domain image.

Contributed by Malcolm Davison.