Patients and medical staff have all bid a sad farewell to a receptionist who has worked at an Oxford GP surgery for the last 35 years.

Sylvia Brindley, centre, receives a large present from receptionist Nikki Exler and Dr Ian Eastwood

Sylvia Brindley, 51, was presented with gifts before she left Temple Cowley Medical Centre, in Temple Road, Cowley, where she had worked since 1967.

Through her work, helping a succession of 12 doctors, she has watched families grow up.

She said: "Working here ran in the family.

"My mother had worked at the practice as a receptionist, so I left school at 15 and started straight away.

Miss Brindley, of Norris Road, south Oxford, has seen the surgery expand from a three-doctor practice in Temple House, to the present six-doctor centre, in a new building across the road, which looks after 9,000 patients.

She said: "It was a tiny little house at first.

"We used to be so cramped together, but it had a lovely family atmosphere.

"One doctor even lived above the surgery.

"We couldn't believe the space we had when we moved to the new building in 1979 -- but now we have more doctors and less space again!"

Miss Brindley is not leaving the NHS for good, but is moving to NHS Professionals, the in-house health service recruitment agency.

Dr Ian Eastwood said staff would miss her, adding: "What makes her special is that she's very kind and courteous and knows all the patients and their relatives and families.

"She gives the surgery a family touch."