A young father was unexpectedly the star of Mother's Day on Sunday when he had to deliver his baby at home.

Steven Larkin, 23, and his partner Jade Menzies, 21, from Farnworth, had originally planned a hospital birth. However, their plans soon changed.

On Sunday morning Jade began having contractions at 4am and when her waters broke at 6.30am the hospital advised them to get their as soon as possible.

But by the time their taxi arrived the baby's head was already crowning.

Steven, a warehouse operative, said: "Jade shouted that she could feel the baby's head, and my mum said 'I don't think we need that taxi anymore'.

"I ran upstairs, Jade was lying on the bed, I grabbed whatever towel I could find and had my phone on loudspeaker to 999 so they could talk me through it.

"Literally, the baby just shot out, I was properly shaking, I was shouting 'what do I do, what do I do'. The call handler said that I had to get some string in three minutes, but I didn't have any string lying about.

"They told me to use anything, like shoe laces, but I ended up using the cord from my shorts.

"The rapid response ambulance showed up a couple of minutes later so I could calm down a bit.

"But there was blood all over the bed, it looked like a murder scene."

The couple also have a two-year-old daughter who was asleep in the next room, completely unaware of what was going on.

Steven said:"I had to try and make sure Jade wasn't too loud otherwise it would wake Scarlett up.

"Luckily my mum and my auntie cleaned up all the mess while we were at the hospital, I didn't want to have to deal with that when we came back.

"We spent 12 hours at the hospital and everything was fine with mum and baby. In the end everything ran smoothly.

"I do have first aid training but they don't teach you anything about delivering a baby."

Coincidently, Steven's brother Ryan also had to deliver his baby at home, so it runs in the family.

Steven said: "You've just got to act in the moment."