I would say it’s obviously down to themselves, but I think it’s a really positive thing to do and I think it makes you feel good about yourself. I think, you feel you’re being useful, that you can maybe in some way help other people. Just really to re-cover what I’ve mentioned earlier that I think it’s, it makes you feel more part of your society and that you’re helping, yeah, and that’s a good thing, yeah.

My husband is also a research biologist who is collecting data all the time and analysing it and I know from him just how important each little part can be and, although, I’m just one person, I feel that I can contribute in some way. Over the years, both my husband and I have actively agreed to take part in studies that the hospital have put out requests for and so on. So, I just see this as another part of partly being kind of proud of being a child of the 50s, but also being an active citizen, so I see it as a public sort of duty in a way almost.

Yes, there was two different ones that we signed up for. One; my husband and I did it together and it was based at the hospital in [place name] and it was relating to diet with regard to is it lycopene in tomatoes and to see whether eating a more Mediterranean diet with a lot of tomato in it would be beneficial to your health and so on.

So, we did that. I think it lasted over a period of about 16 weeks.

Okay.

So, we had to sort of go to the hospital usually about once a week, early in the morning before breakfast to have blood tests and all our vital signs were recorded and so on. They then gave us breakfast and then part of the study was that they put us on one of the diets which they were testing out, so we were, and we were also given a diary that we had to complete, so we had to write down all the food that we ate and so on, for the period that we took part.

Okay, so they were taking blood pressure and things like that?

Yeah.

So once a week you were, you had your blood taken?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay what did you feel about that? [Laughs]

[Laughs] it’s not my favourite thing, but I have to get blood done every so often because my thyroid needs help, so I’m kind of used to it, but, again I thought, Yeah, I’ll do this because it’s helping the study.

What’s been good is, recently, instead of a Christmas card that they sent us, they’ve actually sent out a sort of a newsletter which has had more information on it, so it’s making you feel more up to date. it’s also got a local Facebook page that I signed up to as well. There’s not many posts on it but, you know, people have been putting up photographs and things like that, yeah.

Do you have any comments about the way it is written, the information given?

Ay, I thought it was, I thought it was good. I could see it was pitched possibly at an older age range which we are now sort of thing, so. But it had details about access to websites and things like that, so that’s really good. So, I certainly read it thoroughly. Although I couldn’t repeat what was in the last one because it was quite a while ago, but I certainly followed up and looked at everything that was discussed on it and so on. So, again, I felt valued that they had sent that out to me.

And I think it’s harking back to how things used to be in a way and that it’s almost quite old fashioned. it’s almost, like a curtesy that it’s just keeping in touch, so that it’s, you know, just letting you know what’s happening. So, it is feedback, but it’s got that kind of old fashioned traditional kind of context to it that we were somehow, that’s how you were brought up, so you let people know every so often or it’s, so, you know
Okay.

o, I think that’s really appreciated probably by others as well as myself.

And I think it’s harking back to how things used to be in a way and that it’s almost quite old fashioned. it’s almost, like a curtesy that it’s just keeping in touch, so that it’s, you know, just letting you know what’s happening. So, it is feedback, but it’s got that kind of old fashioned traditional kind of context to it that we were somehow, that’s how you were brought up, so you let people know every so often or it’s, so, you know
Okay.

…so, I think that’s really appreciated probably by others as well as myself.

I’m sorry, but I don’t, I don’t really remember the initial kind of joining or, or being part of it until I was a young adult when I started to have my own address and they kept, I somehow got information from them through the post to say I was part of the cohort. So really it’s been purely something that I’ve just re-registered over the years to let them keep up to date with where I am and agree to continue, you know, agreeing to their requests to continue to use any of my medical data and so on.

I feel that the more we can all do, I’m very much a socialist at heart and I feel that everybody should be trying to contribute to make things better for everybody else, for greater good, so I’m really happy to do that in any way. I really want to support studies that are sort of run for the benefit of everybody.

I’ve seen, you know, when I was working then as physio, hip replacements were a new thing that had just come in and people were having these operations and you could see the benefit it was having for people. Now in my late 60s, I’m starting to develop arthritic joints and things like that, and I know that joint replacement is, is fantastic, you know, I’ve got colleagues and friends that have fake joints and, you know, they’ve got a second lease of life, so I think anything at all that is going to help.