Pub Landlord Paul Carroll is used to receiving deliveries - but he still had some quick-thinking to do when a pregnant woman gave birth on his doorstep.

Paul was upstairs in the Sutton Arms in Sutton- upon-Derwent when his wife called him on the intercom telling him to get downstairs quickly.

He said: "We had opened at 12 noon and my wife called "you'd better get down here".

"She was on the telephone to the ambulance after a chap had been in and said: "Can you phone an ambulance because my wife is having a baby".

"He asked me if I could give him a hand to get his wife inside. When we got to the front door, she said "It's coming", and it was.

"The baby started arriving so we just sat her down on the front mat and I went and got some towels to wrap the baby in.

"It was all a bit of a shock really and it all happened so fast. The baby was born at 12.30pm.

"I've seen two of my own arrive so it wasn't that unusual from that point of view."After the birth, Mr Carroll locked the front door and admitted customers through the back.

"When I told one chap what was happening he said he'd come back later!" he said.

"It's not often you have two customers coming in and three customers coming out.

"The whole thing has generated quite a bit of interest in the pub, that's for sure."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.