Shireoaks: Amazing Graham has given blood 105 times

Graham Ogley, 72, of Shireoaks, gives blood twice a year and has donated 105 pints to date.

And thanks to him, many lives have either been saved or improved down the years.

“They used to say you had to stop giving blood at 70 but that’s changed in the last few years and it’s meant I can go on donating my blood to folk who need it,” he said.

“I don’t think that it’s remarkable what I do. I’m just doing my bit to help others because that’s what you do if you can.”

“I’ve not got a particularly rare blood type, it’s just that doctors need blood like mine as much as anyones.”

Graham first gave blood when he was 16 after being taken to the donation clinic by his father.

“I was an apprentice electrician at the Worksop Co-op,” he recalled.

“One day I was with my father and he stopped at the Welfare, I asked him why and he told me, I was going to give blood. In those days, you did as your father told you so I went in and I’ve been giving blood ever since.”

Graham has now been giving blood to the NHS for 56 years and will make his 106th donation in December. Over the years, the NHS have recognised his efforts by presenting him with a glass plate when he reached 25 pints donated, a pen at 50 and crystal decanter at 100.

And it looks likely they will soon need to starting thinking about what they will present him with for donation number 125.

“I do keep myself very active with caravaning and gardening and that keeps me healthy enough to keep giving blood and as long as that remains the case, I will continue donating,” he said.