Chris is nearing 350 donations!

I started donating at 18, because it was "what one did" —one turned 18, went to uni, got a driver's licence and started donating. Besides, all my family did and I wasn't going to be left out!

As I said, I was at uni, so every 52 days (SA was a bit more lenient than NZ), my friends and I would walk into town to donate. This became even more of a ritual when the local breweries started "Brewery Day" aka "pint for pint" — one gave 600 ml of blood and got 600 ml of beer in return. The queue went halfway round the block!

I continued donating whole blood until 1966 when I contracted "Infective hepatitis" (Hepatitis A) and the Blood Service retired me, seemingly for ever. I was not a happy chappie, but could not do anything about it, until some years later when I saw an advertisement for sufferers from Hep A, preferably, but not necessarily, previous donors, to participate in research on Hep A antigen. I did not know it at the time, but SA was one of the leaders in this research, which ultimately led to Hep A patients being able to donate again.

At that time the centrifuge was 'off-line', so I would give about 600 ml of whole blood, and then the nurse would start a saline drip to keep the hole open, remove the plasma, return the red blood cells to me, and then repeat the process. Very time consuming (upwards of two hours), but I was able to go once a week, and was credited with two donations, which more than made up for the years that I had not been able to donate.

I continued to donate all my time in SA, and even donated once in UK (1986, before the CJD scare) and once or twice in Canada, while on sabbatical. When we immigrated here in 1989, I immediately started donating whole blood and very soon joined the plasma apheresis panel. I am now just 8 donations shy of 350, so should be well past that when I am forced to retire in February next year.