Donors would lie on flimsy-looking, temporary folding beds and fill out forms much more basic than today’s detailed questionnaires.

For their troubles, they were offered a cup of tea and a biscuit.

‘‘Things have changed quite a bit,’’ Mr Brooke said. 

‘‘The one constant is the care and expertise of the [staff]. They put you at ease. You are always looked after very well.’’

Mr Brooke – possessor of coveted, all-purpose, O-negative blood – will make his 100th blood donation this month, when the Wollongong Donor Centre marks its 50th anniversary. 

It opened on April 8, 1963, a permanent service in temporary quarters in Wollongong Hospital, the only blood bank outside  Sydney to perform the full range of donor laboratory services including typing, testing and cross-matching.

A ready-made pool of donors – building since WWII – was there to supply it. Wollongong and Newcastle were the first NSW emergency blood-collection centres established outside  Sydney, out of concern that an aerial attack could disrupt the city’s supply and create a mass, unmet need for blood. 

In May 1941, 591 Illawarra donors signed on to an emergency donor list, indicating they would respond if there was an urgent bleeding event.

Mobile visits came to the region in 1954, drawing on 1400 registered donors four times a year, but it could be difficult to find people willing to donate on demand. 

The system was also thought weak for its reliance on train and road transport for getting blood from Sydney to Wollongong.

The modern-day Wollongong Donor Centre, which draws on 5000 regular donors, has outgrown its Loftus Street premises and is expected to move late this year or early in 2014.

The Australian Red Cross predicts demand for blood will double over the next 10 years.