I work in the North of England Children’s Cancer Research Unit. We have done several investigations of whether the risk of children’s cancer is associated with factors around the time of birth, using the COHORT of all 287,013 live births in the county of Cumbria, north-west England, between 1950 and 1993.

We entered birth registration details of all these children onto a computer database.

Then we found out which children developed cancer, the precise diagnosis and at what age. We wanted to know about cancers diagnosed anywhere in the United Kingdom, not just in Cumbria.