Pictured: (l-r) Dennis Lowe, Barbara Armstrong, Adrian Reynolds, Catherine Smith and Peter Townsend

Four staff celebrating 40 years with Duncan and Toplis - a leading East Midlands independent firm of chartered accountants - received ruby gold badges from the firm to mark the milestone.

And while they didn't share the precious stones with their colleagues, they did share gems of wisdom and recalled their favourite moments working with the firm at a lunch held recently in their honour. Duncan and Toplis Deputy Managing partner Adrian Reynolds said he was delighted to be celebrating these achievements.

"The firm prides itself on maintaining colleague satisfaction, and the fact that we have four staff members have grown with the firm during the past four decades is testament to our success in this area," he said.

With 168 years of service between them, Barbara Armstrong and Managing Partner Peter Townsend (Grantham office), Catherine Smith (Spalding office) and Dennis Lowe (Melton Mowbray office) have seen many changes in the industry during their time.

Peter Townsend said he had seen many changes since starting with the firm, when there were few staff and no computers. Dennis Lowe also said one of the biggest changes was the introduction of computers.

"When I started we hardly had calculators and everything was recorded in ledgers, but now computers have taken over and the whole way of working has changed and I must say it is for the better," he said.

Barbara Armstrong also recalled spending Saturday mornings in the office checking additions without the use of calculators.

"The first analysis machine was like an old cash register producing a till roll of totals which were summarised on a manual set of accounts. This was later replaced by a much larger analysis machine which entered details of the accounts on to pre-printed sheets," she said.

"Additions still had to be checked, but by now though we were lucky enough to have adding machines - cumbersome things that nearly fell off the end of the desk if, like me, you tapped the keys too quickly!

"Decimalisation was a huge relief (although at the time it seemed to be quite a task to convert the manual ledgers from pounds, shillings and pence to decimal currency) as this now meant that we no longer had to remember it was 12 pence to the shilling and 20 shillings to the pound."

While firm loyalty no longer seems fashionable, Catherine Smith said the main reason she stayed for 40 years with Duncan & Toplis was that she simply enjoyed it.

"I have enjoyed the assignments given, the variety in the type of work and the colleagues - too many to recall. With Duncan & Toplis I always felt I was a valued member of staff and not just a number," she said.