A GWENT midwife who helped deliver more than 600 babies has died at the age of 95.

Lilian Lewis served as a district midwife in the old Ebbw Vale Hospital between 1945 and 1959.

Born in 1919, Mrs Lewis came from a family of eight children who grew up in a two-bedroom terraced house in Ebbw Vale.

She qualified as a midwife in Bristol in 1945, having witnessed Bristol being the fifth most heavily-bombed British city during the Second World War.

A lifetime member of the Labour Party, Mrs Lewis returned to Ebbw Vale in 1949 at a time when Aneurin Bevan, the chief architect of the NHS, was MP for Blaenau Gwent.

Mrs Lewis’ son, Alan Rides, 53, from Richmond said: “All she could talk about was babies, babies and babies.

“These mothers in Blaenau Gwent would now be in their 70s and their children in their 50s.

“She used to go round to their homes four or five times beforehand and then five or six times as a follow-up.

“She just loved helping people.”

Mrs Lewis moved to London in 1959, working at the newly-built Charing Cross Hospital. Highlights of her time in London included seeing the Beatles at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1965.

She retired in 1975, spending much of her retirement travelling and playing bowls with her husband, Fred Rides, who she married at the age of 41 in 1959.

Right up until her death, Mrs Lewis kept in touch with her roots and regularly visited Llansteffan on the coast of Carmarthenshire, where her father, Thomas, was born.

She died in her sleep at White Farm Lodge nursing home in Richmond on March 27, having suffered with dementia for six years.

Mr Rides said: “Above everything else, my mother taught me strong family values.

“Her mother lived with us when I was growing up and she lived with me when my children were growing up.

“It was quite a shame to see her as she slowly went through dementia but she had a wonderful life.”

Mrs Lewis’ funeral took place at South West Middlesex Crematorium on Tuesday April 14.