Lesley Brown was the world's first test-tube baby's mother and she has died at the age of 64.

It was about 34 years ago that Lesley made medical history when she gave birth to Louise.

It was for nine years that she and her husband John were trying to have a baby but were unable to do so. Then they signed up for an experimental procedure that was called in vitro fertilization.

At the first attempt only she became pregnant and it was on July 25, 1978, that Louise Joy Brown was born with a weight of 5lb 12oz at the Oldham General Hospital by caesarean section at 11:47 pm.

This made many couples who were longing for a baby hopeful and it captured the world's imagination.

It was again by IVF that Lesley again conceived her second child Natalie four years later as her fallopian tubes were blocked and this could make her pregnant naturally.

About four million babies have been born since those pioneering days across the world using this technique. In this technique a woman's eggs are fertilised with sperm outside the body and then implanted into the womb.