SHE celebrated her 90th birthday by wandering down memory lane.

For a surprise party turned into a reunion with old colleagues for New Milton pensioner May Welsby who was a midwife for more than 40 years.

The great-grandmother qualified in 1945 and worked as a district midwife in her home county of Lancashire. In the mid ’60s she moved south and worked in Poole, Dorset.

In 1966 she joined the staff of the Barton-on-Sea maternity hospital where she worked as a midwifery sister until it closed in 1987.

May said: “I loved my work and it was my life.”

As well as being showered with birthday cards and flowers, May celebrated her 90th with a party at the Cliffhanger Café in Highcliffe.