Our first nomination for Kingston's Best Vet is Lucy Hancox, a vet at the A F O'Meara Veterinary Practice in Chessington.

Maria Hamilton from Chessington Zoo nominated Lucy for her emergency work at the zoo.

"She is always very helpful and approachable when we call out-of-hours. We know that if we have any problems, they will be dealt with quickly," she said.

Lucy, 34, grew up on a farm in Australia surrounded by animals. "I always wanted to be a vet because of the menagerie of animals we had when I was a child. There were goats, cows and I had a pony as well," she said.

After qualifying as a vet in Sydney, Lucy left to travel around Britain, working as a locum in Suffolk and Surrey. Two years later she met fellow vet and husband-to-be Andy. "I always swore I would never marry a vet. I had intended to go back to Australia but after I met Andy I just ended up staying here for good," she said.

Lucy started working full-time at A F O'Meara five years ago.

She said: "I'm really lucky because I'm the only vet who works at the practice so I get plenty of personal contact with clients and animals."

Both Lucy and Andy are emergency vets for Chessington Zoo. "Although they have a regular zoo vet, they sometimes need one of us out of hours. Andy does most of the exotic work because he has a real passion for it, but I do my bit, including operating on a squirrel monkey, although it wasn't the famous SpongeBob unfortunately."