Alan Irving

Last updated 12:41, Thursday, 27 March 2008

More than 50 years ago, Ian Graham asked William Fare if there were any jobs going - and he's been a pharmacist ever since.

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Alistair Graham at the robotic dispenser which sorts the items

IN 1956 a young Whitehaven Grammar School lad walked into No. 11 Market Place and asked Mr William Fare for a job – he got it.

More than 50 years on, Ian Graham – the proprietor for a good many of them – has spent his entire working life seeing to the medicinal needs of the community.

And W. Fare has taken a significant step forward – a hop, skip and jump from one side of the Market Place to the other!

The new shop right on the corner of what many members may remember as Walter Willson grocer’s (more recently Global Video) has been transformed into a light, airy and wonderfully spacious pharmacy where life is more comfortable for staff and customers alike.

“Our biggest concern was whether people would cross the road – I know it sounds ridiculous but none of us knew for sure until it happened,” said Ian. “It has, thank goodness.”

Obviously the chemistry has worked.

W Fare Ltd is now the only independent chemist’s shop left in Whitehaven town centre. Once there were eight but that was a long time ago – the advent of the supermarket changed all that.

A headache, perhaps, for all the small chemists. But for all those townsfolk who don’t want to hand their prescriptions into a one-stop shop while loading their trollies W. Fare along with Boots’ continue to dispense in the more traditional way.

There is also the not inconsiderable help of a remarkable robot which gathers the information from the prescriptions, collects the medicines and then sends them back downstairs ready labelled for staff to check that no mistake has been made by this seemingly foolproof machine.

Apparently a one-stop-shop in itself, this is a robot which has to be seen to be believed. All your medicines come down the chute ready boxed as well as labelled.

A far cry from 1956, then, when 17-year-old Ian Graham, or Whitehaven Grammar for that matter, had any real idea that such a revolution could take place – robots were only vaguely talked about then.

“Mr William Fare was a kindly soul who took me under his wing. I’d been studying languages at the Grammar – I didn’t know where they were going to lead me but we had relatives in pharmacy at Keswick, so I thought I would try and go down that route.

“He articled me as an apprentice for two years, learning the trade in the shop, then I went to college and got qualified as a pharmacist.”

Ian’s job was waiting for him and nothing much changed until William Fare (on doctor’s advice) decided it was time for him to start taking life easy and his understudy had the chance to buy a thriving business.

“There was a bit of an unwritten agreement that eventually I would succeed him but one day Mr Fare came into the shop and said ‘I am retiring’ – it came as a bit of a shock as well because it meant I would have to find a lot of money.

“I was in my 30s and already had a mortgage to buy our house and we’d also started a family, so I had to take a risk. I went to the Nat West to borrow money – I didn’t have a business plan or anything like that but he gave me money, a lot of it.

“At first you don’t realise how big the risk is, but I suppose it was a calculated risk and I just sort of went for it.

“The pressure was on to make sure the business continued to grow. There were five of us working very hard to make it work, working all hours really, sometimes from nine in the morning until eight at night. We used to stay until everybody had their prescriptions.

“It was funny, the first work I started, I was out on my feet having to stand all day having sat on my backside most of the time at school.

“Something else that also kept us busy was the fact that we used to make our own hand creams and leg tans, a throwback to the war years; we actually made them to our own recipe in the shop but that stopped long ago. You can’t compete with the big manufacturers these days.”

One of the most fundamental changes has seen pharmacy departments suddenly springing up in the supermarkets – “Yes, it has been a trend. It all happened because the government was making noises, wanting pharmacy to be more accessible to the general public. We had two shops – the other was on Scotch Street which I actually sold to Safeway, now Morrisons, but it was only after a bit of soul- searching that I decided to sell in case the government started a free-for-all with de-regulation.

“I was bothered in case it endangered the Market Place business but thankfully it doesn’t appear to have done.

“It was a case of them simply wanting my NHS contract without me, they didn’t offer me the franchise space but there was no way I was going to sell Market Place as well.

“I think the decision has paid off.”

Are supermarkets a threat to the independent chemists’ shops in towns like Whitehaven? – “I see them as a threat everywhere and it’s possible the smaller units may disappear as time goes on.

“Our NHS business has certainly grown: it’s the direct sales over the counter for non-prescription medicines where we have lost a bit to the supermarkets. They have the power and others are powerless.”

Other than the superstores – and the doctors’ surgeries – there are few shops with the turnover and customer throughput of a chemists.

Up to 400 prescriptions alone are handed into W. Fare every day. There is no set target but the boss likes to see an average turnover time of around 10 minutes – “We try to be as quick as we can: if you’ve spent half an hour in the doctor’s you don’t want to be waiting another 30 minutes in the chemist’s.

“Having more space now is also good for business. We have always grown, striving to be better than the previous year. Medicines are better and more effective than they used to be as medical and pharmaceutical science progress.”

Another interesting, but perhaps welcome, trend has been the way GPs process the prescription for patient and chemist.

“In the old days they had to be handwritten; now it’s done by computer printout.”

Any problems reading the writing in the past? – “Well, just now and again. You got used to your own local doctor’s writing, but if you got a customer coming in from out of town from a different GP then occasionally we might have to ring and check.

“But I can imagine the writing could change with the sheer volume of prescriptions they had to write out – it’s greatly improved nowadays.

“Occasionally we have had forged prescriptions: the ones we have had have usually been crudely written by people trying to rub out and alter numbers.”

Very exacting and clearly confidential work then? – “You do have to try and be right all the time. We’ve never had to go through any complaints procedures or anything like that, which speaks volumes for the care of our staff.

“Confidentiality is taken as read – it is written in our contractual agreements, and if there are any excess labels for the medicines there is no question of them being thrown away with the rubbish. Everything is destroyed.

“We are also a family business looking to offer something else, and for us it is the personal touch.”

Thirty years or so after his first big gamble Ian Graham had to take another risk – not to buy a shop this time but to rent one, and even though he had his eyes on a property right across the road it still took serious thought.

“I had the same confidence, but this time I didn’t have to go and borrow money. When Global Video closed down I thought that, as this was probably the largest shop in the Market Place, I should go and have a look as a one-off opportunity.

“It was ideal, but as I said none of us knew whether our customers, some of whom we’ve had for more than 30 years, would cross the road because the main shopping area is on the side where we had been all those years, right next to the Post Office which is quite a big draw. But they have – we have had nice comments and the move seems to have been well accepted.

“Anyway, at No.11 we just didn’t have a room big enough for the robot I also had my eyes on!”

This is a sophisticated piece of German-inspired machinery.

Ian Graham and his 12-strong staff are naturally excited by the wonderful things it can do unseen while they are rushed off their feet downstairs.

“On the one hand the robot speeds up the dispensing operation: it puts all the goods away to start with then when the prescriptions come in the information is fed into a computer which in turn goes to the robot who travels up and down in a self-contained unit accurately picking the right medicine for each prescription off the shelves before sending them down a chute after interfacing with the labelling computer.

“It is a huge investment, but I think that because we have been busy with the move we have still to see the best of it.”

Ian Graham reckons he might finally call it a day when the new shop is in full swing later this year, with his youngest daughter Sam, herself a qualified pharmacist, taking charge. But he insists that it will be a case of machine working for man – or woman!

He also reckons that if you have a headache it’s best to ask your chemist what’s best to take. I think he might just know: “I had a heart attack 12 years ago but I don’t get many headaches. When I do it’s just two paracetamols and a drink of water...”