The maternity block at the former Gravesend and North Kent Hospital may be empty and decrepit but a former midwife remembers when it was bursting with life.

Mary Sargeant, 82, worked at the hospital in Bath Street, Gravesend, for 27 years and brought about 730 babies into the world, until a back injury forced her away from delivery duties.

She rose through the ranks from midwife to staff midwife and sister before finally retiring as sister in charge of the special care baby unit in 1989.

Ms Sargeant never had any children herself but kept a list of all of the babies she delivered and still meets one or two to this day.

She said: “I do still see some of my babies, the ones that I delivered.

“I don’t see that many now, but I used to meet some people who would say they knew me from being their midwife.”

The opening of Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford made the Gravesend hospital obsolete and it closed in 2004. Partial services remained in the maternity block until it shut in 2006.

The Messenger exclusively revealed a few weeks ago that Gravesham council was in talks with NHS Property Services about how to develop the site, with plans for flats, offices or shops to be built.

Ms Sargeant said she was “sad” to see the state the building had fallen into. However, she could fondly recall when the place was full of expectant parents and bouncing babies.

Ms Sargeant said: “We moved into that building in 1971 and at that time people stayed in hospital for at least five to 10 days.

“The hospital was in full use; the basement floor was a kitchen, the next floor was a labour waiting room, the next a ward for those who had given birth and there were clinics and paediatrics clinics there too.”

BBC drama series Call the Midwife has been a big hit since it came onto our screens in 2012.

The series that follows the lives of a group of midwives in London’s East End during the 1950s has won awards and critical acclaim.

The TV critics have not been the only ones impressed with the show – Ms Sargeant also gave it praise.

She said: “I did my training in 1960 and in fact Call the Midwife has just got up to around that time.

“The first series was just before my time and things had started to change by 1961. I did my training in a sort of religious facility but we all lived together.

“It [the show] was a bit shaky at the beginning but it seems pretty good now.”

Ms Sargeant has been retired for more than 25 years and said one thing she did not miss was the late nights.

She said: “I did quite a bit of night duty. It wasn’t my thing, but one had to do it to move up from staff midwife to sister.”

Childbirth practice has changed a lot over the years but Ms Sargeant remembers a time when men knew their place – and it was not in the delivery suite.

Ms Sargeant, of Melbourne Quay, Gravesend, said: “When I first started fathers were not allowed anywhere near. It was only the midwife, the woman in labour and someone else helping a bit.

“I can’t quite remember when fathers were allowed to come in but it was quite a while after.

“When I did my training, the second half of it was in the community and the district midwife then asked the fathers to be present if it was a home birth, but in the hospital they were not allowed.”

Talks on the future of Ms Sargeant’s former place of work are still in the early stages.

It appears unlikely the site will again be alive with the sounds of little tots but Ms Sargeant said this could be for the best.

She said: “I don’t think it would be feasible. They’re very settled up at Darent Valley and people can get home from there in no time. I don’t think it would happen, particularly if it was to be a maternity unit or hospital.”