A TOP pharmacist will be hanging up his white lap coat at the end of the month after more than 30 years service at Scunthorpe General Hospital.

Jim Hollingworth, assistant chief pharmacist at the hospital, is retiring after 33 years - the day before his 65th birthday.

He added: "I have been lucky to have worked with some wonderful people. I always find it quite humbling seeing the excellent and often unsung, work that staff do and it has been a privilege to have worked alongside them in such a friendly place."

Looking forward to retirement he has started viola lessons and is looking at the possibility of doing a degree in photography.

Mr Hollingworth started at the hospital in January 1977 as a manufacturing pharmacist.

He said: "Essentially we used to make things such as creams, ointments, suppositories, disinfectants; anything that we couldn't buy in we would have a go and make it.

"Things have changed over the years. We no longer receive bottles with 5,000 tablets which have to be broken down into smaller bottles.

"We rarely used to count the tablets, it was all done on guess work and there was no such thing as an expiry date."

Mr Hollingworth started his career in pharmacy in 1966 having successfully qualified at Nottingham University.

He said: "It was a teacher who suggested pharmacy as he knew I enjoyed photography and visited my local chemist weekly to buy the chemicals to make my own developing solution."

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