I began donating blood in 1983 at Hastings Hospital. My husband had Polycythaemia rubra vera and each month he visited the Hastings clinic where they took a pint of blood from him. One day the nurse suggested that I was there also I might as well donate some blood. Reluctantly, I agreed. During the process a call came to the clinic asking for whole blood to be used for an emergency operation. A short while later an orderly appeared and my blood was dispatched to the main hospital. According to the nurse it was to be used for the operation. I don't know if that actually happened but it made me feel I had done something for someone else. I am 70 and am still donating blood. My husband later developed chronic myeloid leukaemia and died in 1988.