Rosemary Barber has never known a life without the NHS after emerging into the world on its second day of existence at the Radcliffe Infirmary.

On July 6, 1948, Rosemay Pill (as she was) became one of the first babies in the country born into the system, in the first phase of the grand 'cradle to the grave' vision of the welfare state.

The NHS officially came into being on July 5. Having regularly used all three of the city's major hospitals, the Churchill, the Nuffield and the John Radcliffe, Mrs Barber, of St Nicholas Park in Old Marston, praised the care she had received over the past 60 years.

She said: "I don't think you can fault the NHS in Oxford. Every hospital is in the vicinity and with all the new cancer wards at the Churchill there is every kind of treatment within quite a small area.

"I think people do take it for granted sometimes. In America they don't have a health service, and it costs a fortune."

Mrs Barber's diabetes means she needs a yearly check up at the Churchill and an ongoing hand complaint has meant regular contact with the NHS in Oxford.

"Over Christmas I kept getting really bad headaches, so I had CAT scans and MRI scans at the neurology unit at the JR.

I didn't even need to make an appointment. My doctor just spoke to them at the hospital and they said just come in.

I have something wrong with my left hand and I had three doctors looking at it for an hour and ten minutes, doing ultrasound scans of my hand and filming it and making video clips."

A grandmother of seven, Mrs Barber had three children - Karen, 39, Steven, 37, and Tracey, 35 - all born in the city and said she appreciated the advances made over the years: "I remember being told that when I was young I had my tonsils and adenoids out at Watlington Hospital and I haemorrhaged - I was in there for two weeks.

"Nowadays it's just a routine thing. One of my grandsons had it done in a few hours."