A PROUD father has spoken of the day he delivered his baby daughter in his parents’ back garden.

Jason Davies, 27, was forced to play midwife when wife, Zoe, also 27, went into labour as they sipped tea in his mum and dad’s garden.

An ambulance was called to the house in Mulberry Avenue, Colchester, but the eager tot beat paramedics to it, forcing Mr Davies to deliver the baby girl himself.

He said: “It was happening so quickly. I didn’t have time to think. It was automatic.

“The ambulance crew was fantastic and was there within four minutes, but it was all done by then. Then we laid Zoe on towels. The baby’s head was out, and by the time I grabbed it, I had hold of the whole body.”

The couple had already had one trip to Colchester General Hospital that day, after Mrs Davies’s waters broke.

They were sent home and Mrs Davies was advised to rest when her contractions stopped.

Mr Davies, a yard foreman for Tiptree Building Supplies, suggested they pop to his parents to tell them what was happening.

Less than an hour later, they welcomed Pheobe Hope Davies to the world.

The couple’s two-year-old son, Jayden, was there to witness the birth of his new sister, as were Jason’s mum and dad, his brother-in-law, two younger sisters and Zoe’s mum.

Mr Davies joked: “Zoe isn’t worried she gave birth in the garden but she’s devastated it was in front of half our family!

“Now things have settled down, but we still can’t believe it happened.”

Pheobe was born weighing 6lbs and 15oz and mother and baby are doing well.

The house where she was born is no stranger to new arrivals – Mr Davies himself was delivered there 27 years before.