A mother in Shropshire has given 90 pints of breast milk to other people's babies. In Ely, a ten-minute favour has run for 50 years.

Emma's son Bert was born in November 2025 at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford. He arrived with Down's syndrome and oesophageal atresia, a birth defect that means food cannot reach the stomach. 1

At three weeks old he contracted sepsis. He spent 16 weeks in intensive care at Birmingham Children's Hospital, and for that whole stretch he was nil by mouth. 1

Emma, who lives near Oswestry in Shropshire, worked out what to do with the milk she was expressing. "I sat there thinking I'm going to have a lot of milk to give away," she said. "I saw a number of mothers that really struggled to express milk. I thought, let's donate mine to other neonatal babies." 1

She has given more than 90 pints so far to the Human Milk Bank at Birmingham Women's Hospital, the only service of its kind in the Midlands. In the past year that bank supplied 1,900 pints of donor milk to premature and sick babies across the region. 1 It works on surplus, taking milk from mothers whose own babies are thriving and passing it to babies whose mothers cannot feed them. 2

The milk costs Emma half an hour at a time, up to four times a day, on a pump. She decants each batch into storage bags and freezes them; the charity Blood Bikes collects the bags and drives them to Birmingham, where the milk is checked, pasteurised and stored. 1 I keep coming back to the arithmetic of it: half an hour, four times a day, for most of a year, to reach 100 pints.

Donna Hearnden, the bank's manager, said demand often outstrips supply. "We have a lot of babies that are born premature, and they need breast milk," she said. "We think of it as a medicine and it can absolutely help to save their lives." 1

Dr Gemma Holder, a consultant neonatologist at Birmingham Women's Hospital, explained who the milk reaches. Many parents of premature or sick babies cannot express their own, she said, because they live far away, cannot visit around other commitments, or are seriously ill themselves — sometimes the very reason the baby was born early. Stress holds milk production back. Donor milk "takes the pressure off" and gives those mothers the room for their own supply to come in. 1

The bank marked its 75th birthday this year and is asking for more donors. Mothers with milk to spare can enrol until their own baby is six months old and keep donating until that baby turns one. Donors take a blood test and answer a questionnaire about their health and lifestyle; smoking and some prescribed medicines rule people out. The bank can be reached on 0121 335 8245 or at bwc.milk.bank@nhs.net. 2

Emma hopes to reach 100 pints by the time Bert turns one in November, and counts the donation as a way of giving back to the NHS that treated him. She works as a senior lecturer specialising in dairy cow production. "Knowing I can help other mothers, parents and tiny babies who were in our situation is a real privilege," she said. 1

In 1976, Glyn Jones was a 26-year-old regular at The Prince Albert in Ely, Cambridgeshire, when he was asked to help serve a rush of customers. The job was supposed to last ten minutes. He has been working behind that bar ever since. 3

A pint cost about 20p when he started. Five decades on, he still works Thursday to Sunday, in a shirt with a novelty tie and braces printed with beer mugs. "It keeps me on my feet," he said. "I was rather shy to begin with, it gives me confidence." The years had "flown by". 3

The pub was his second job. For 48 years he also worked as a lab technician in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge. One customer used to tell people that the barman's trousers fell down whenever he blew the horn for last orders. "He told it so many times, even I used to believe it," Jones said. 3

About 90 people turned up to a surprise party for his 50 years, where he was presented with an award from CAMRA and a plaque from Greene King. 3

Mike Connelly, the landlord for the past 14 years, reckons the pub got the better of the deal. "He's served under six landlords and he's been an absolute legend throughout," he said. "He's definitely the most reliable person I have ever worked with." He added: "Glyn will not be retiring. He's going to carry on. I've told him he's got to make it 60 years." 3

A new landlord is due to take over the pub soon, and Jones hopes to stay on under them. He calls his half-century the "longest 10 minutes in history". 3