We asked PM listeners to take a photo at 5pm on Tuesday the 5th of December.
This is a picture of part of the Clinical Biochemistry department at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock. I have worked in hospital labs for over 40 years and have managed this department for the last 13 years.
In 1966 we did all the tests by hand and worked on about 100 blood specimens a day, doing perhaps 2 or 3 tests on each sample. Now, as the picture shows, the work is almost entirely mechanised and large analytical machines process over 2000 specimens a day, with an average 12 tests per specimen. Such is progress.
In the picture, taken at 5 o'clock (check the wall clock), the day shift has just gone to get their coats and a couple of biomedical scientists are preparing to continue the work through the evening and right round the clock. Like the Windmill Theatre, we never close.
I start listening to "PM" when I get in the car, usually at about 5:15, and generally hear the end of the programme in my kitchen at home.