A long serving council worker has finally called it a day after almost half a century of working in local government.

Len Lewis, 65, who was born only a stone’s throw away from Lambeth Town Hall, gave nearly 48 years of service to Lambeth Council.

He began working for it in August 1964, when the Vietnam War was still rumbling on, a pint of beer cost a shilling and Mary Poppins was premiering at the cinemas.

He retired as the council’s civic services manager, as well as being responsible for the mayor’s office and ensuring elections ran smoothly.

Mr Lewis, who was born in Effra Road, Brixton, began work as a junior clerk in the then town clerk’s department and eventually moved on to working in electoral services which was the mainstay of his work.

He said: "My role has always involved elections in some way or another.

"I remember as a junior clerk – which was well before computers – we had to work overtime to handwrite every polling card.

"Can you imagine it? A group of us had to handwrite 220,000 cards in the week before the election."

Mr Lewis now plans to travel round Europe with his wife and spend time tending to his garden.

He said: "Like any job, it’s had its good times and challenging times.

"I’ve met and worked with some wonderful characters and I’ve had the privilege of working on behalf of the place where I was born and grew up and watching it become the place it is today.

"I will miss many things about working at Lambeth, but I’ll especially miss the team I work with now, who are a fantastic group of people.”