Actor Brian Blessed has claimed he delivered a baby girl in Richmond Park - before chewing through the umbilical cord and licking the newborn's face.

The well-known star said the bizarre incident took place in the south-west London park in 1963 while he was in the TV police drama Z-Cars.

Blessed, who at the time was in his late 20s, claimed he was running when he spotted a woman in labour beneath a tree.

"I rushed across to her and she was having the baby and had her legs open," he told the BBC Radio 4 show Midweek this morning during a discussion about a man's role in childbirth.

"She knew me in Z-Cars [and] she said 'please Mr Blessed, I'm having a baby, I'm having a baby'.

"I said 'breathe deeply' and gradually I got the baby out so the head..."

After an incredulous interruption by host Libby Purves, the star added: "Yes I delivered it in Richmond Park and the afterbirth came out, and the clots, I got rid of the clots, pressed the belly and got rid of the clots.

"Then I got the afterbirth out, then I bit it loose then I tied it into a knot, and then I just called for help and eventually an ambulance came.

"I was covered in blood, my shirt was covered in blood, I was wrapping her, wiping her, [saying] 'it's alright darling'.

"And I was licking the baby's face."

The 78-year-old actor, the son of a coal miner, claimed he knew what to do because his working class background meant he had seen his mother deliver children as a child.

"I had been brought up with babies," he said.

When contacted by the Standard for a comment on the claim, a spokeswoman for the star said: "I can only imagine if that's what he said then that's what happened."

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