A DOCTOR is retiring, after practising for 34 years – his whole working life – at a Hitchin doctor’s surgery.

Dr John Machen, a senior partner at Regal Chambers Surgery, will leave at the end of the month.

During his time in practice, the surgery has moved from premises at its old site in Marshall House and, more recently, through a major refurbishment.

When he joined fresh from training in 1978, prescriptions and consultations were handwritten, and appointments put in a book.

Now, they are all done online.

Dr Machen will have a leaving party, and patients have been writing in a memory book for him.

Yvonne Pope, surgery business manager, said: “It’s full of lovely anecdotes of his time as their family GP and shows how much he has been valued by the people of Hitchin.

“Everyone at the practice wishes him a long and happy retirement doing all the things he enjoys most.”