AT 11.55pm Catherine Eastham McCarthy was watching the New Year celebrations on television - two and a half hours later she had given birth to a 7lb 4oz boy, the first baby to be born in Burnley General Hospital in the new millennium.

Baby Bradley arrived at 2.33am, a brother to 22-month-old Payton, named after Andy Payton, the Burnley footballer.

Catherine, 20, of Charles Street, Nelson, works at the Colne Asda store and partner Gary Redman is manager at Carpet City.

She said: "It was five minutes to midnight when I realised things were happening and I needed to get to hospital.

"Bradley was supposed to arrive on Christmas Eve so he was a little bit late. He waited until the start of the new millennium."

The last baby of the old century to be born in the hospital was a little girl, not yet named, daughter of mum Azra and Shabaz Sikander of Colne Road, Burnley.

She arrived weighing 4lb 5oz at 10.30pm, a sister to two boys and two girls.

Second new millennium delivery at the hospital was another girl weighing in at 6lbs, the daughter of Reba Begum of Cromwell Street, Burnley, and her husband Abdul Ali, a restaurant worker.

She arrived at 6.54am. The couple have yet to decide on a name for their first daughter. They already have two sons.

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