An Edgware vet is retiring after working for 43 years in the same surgery, where he has seen everything from hamsters to circus baboons.

Michael Turner, 69, has been a small animal vet at the Mandeville Veterinary Practice in Whitchurch Lane since April 1969.

Mr Turner, who has three children, lives next door to the practice with his thankfully animal-loving wife Anne-Marie Turner, 70.

He trained in Liverpool before spending two years working on farms in Yorkshire.

In 1969 he moved to Whitchurch Lane, where he set up a veterinary practice in his family home.

Mr Turner used his front room as a surgery and his hall as the waiting room.

He said: “In the early days I was seeing 50 to 60 patients a day. Sometimes it was so busy that clients had to sit on the stairs while they were waiting.

“My wife would carry our small children up the stairs to bed, climbing over the clients and their pets.”

Mr Turner recollects how he used to carry out emergency operations at his home at weekends with his wife, who was a midwife, acting as surgical assistant, and his children playing nearby.

As the practice developed, Mr Turner built an extension onto his home to act as a surgery, but eventually moved the practice into the house next door.

During the Seventies, the vet recalls how he saw a number of exotic and dangerous animals.

For example, he was called to attend to a baboon in labour at a travelling circus, a cheetah which had come off worse in a fight with a dog, a lion cub belonging to someone in Wembley and a full-grown male lion with a cut to its paw.

Mr Turner said: “Things are rather tamer these days – the most dangerous animals I see now are dogs like pit bulls.

“You never used to have to have a licence to have dangerous animals, so people had them as pets.”

Mr Turner now has clients who belong to families he has been working with for three generations.

He said: “I see people bring their grandchildren and their pets in and I remember seeing these people when they were children themselves.”

In 2006 a group of these long-standing clients and members of staff nominated Mr Turner for the British Vet of the Year award.

He made it to the final three and was filmed at work for a presentation at a black-tie dinner and ceremony at the NEC in Birmingham.

Mr Turner said: “That was one of the biggest highs of my career. It was fantastic.”

However, he also admitted that being a vet could be very stressful. He said: “There are times when you get very stressed and frustrated.

“It is a job which carries a lot of responsibility and leaves you dealing with life and death situations every day.”

He cited the example of when, during his first week in Edgware, he received a call from the police in the middle of the night.

A lorry carrying sheep had crashed and five sheep were injured.

Mr Turner was required to put all of these animals down.

Mr Turner and his wife now have seven grandchildren but continue to fill their home with animals. They have an African grey parrot who says “morning” to them when they get up, a 21-year-old tortoise, two Jack Russells and a number of ex-battery chickens which they rescued.

Mr Turner will retire on Friday, March 30, and after knee replacement surgery, will spend his time walking, playing golf and visiting galleries and the theatre.

He said: “One always has mixed feelings about retirement. There are a lot of things I am looking forward to, but I will miss my clients, both human and animal.”

Staff at Mandeville Veterinary Practice are organising a leaving party for the vet on Wednesday, March 21, and will welcome any of his clients who wish to attend.