Speaker Bruce Clark - 'Health'

It was a few years before Club Treasurer Bruce Clark realised fully that he was a “cohort” – and that he had been so since the week he was born back in 1946.

The reality dawned on him long before he presented this news to fellow members on Tuesday evening. He went on to explain precisely why he – like 4999 other UK children born in that same week – had earned this title.

His parents had agreed to a request from the Medical Research Council who in 1946 instituted the National Survey of Health and Development. The initial idea was to study the effects of rationing and austere conditions during World War 2 and thereafter, determining if such conditions were beneficial to the health of Britons. The study was designed to carry on for the rest of the lives of the 5000 children selected. During their school years, the children were examined every year and the medical studies continued as they grew older.

Bruce reported that his most recent MRC assessment had taken place only last month - a two-hour intensive period of physiological and psychological investigation.

Which, of course, he passed with flying colours!

Results from all the participants are then compared over the many years of assessments to gauge effects of ageing and with the collaboration of university researchers globally, identify likely causes of such as cardio-vascular disease, cancers and other conditions.

Now, 69 years after the MRC study was introduced, 3500 of the original 5000 children are still alive and being regularly monitored.

As Bruce rather succinctly described it, “The MRC scientists know much more about me than I do about myself.”

Wilda McKinnon proposed a well-deserved vote of thanks.