The Times We Lived In: A test tube of plain is your only man

What richly black substance could the young man in the lab coat be distilling from the pristine liquids in the jars? Could it be oil, to help the wheels of the nation’s burgeoning infrastructure run smoothly? Or some revolutionary new medicine, for the inoculation of Ireland’s future generations?

Um, not exactly. The elixir the young chap is transferring so carefully from one test tube to another is, in fact, Guinness.

The photograph was taken at the opening of the new Guinness research labs in Dublin. Hence the stellar line-up around the Bunsen burners, named in the caption as (from left): the managing director of Guinness, Lord Boyd; the chairman, Lord Elveden; his wife, Lady Elveden; the taoiseach Sean Lemass; and Guinness directors Lord Moyne and CK Mill.

The laboratory assistant is Frank Edge, and the white-haired gentleman on the extreme right, watching him with a mixture of apprehension and paternal pride, is his boss, chief chemist Dr AK Mills.

Whatever stout new development has been added to the manufacturing process, if the general expressions of jollity are anything to go by it appears to be going down a treat. Maybe they’re all about to get a snifter – or have already had one.

Arminta Wallace