After 28 years as Bere Alston’s much loved resident chemist, Ian Peacock is bidding farewell to Bere Peninsula Pharmacy and hanging up his white lab coat for the final time to retire.

When looking to the future in school, Ian knew his career would follow one of two paths: chemistry or engineering. As an inquisitive individual, intrigued by science, he choose chemistry which he was certain would prove to be a secure career. Ian proceeded to study at the University of Manchester, where many years of hard work allowed him qualify and take on a role with Lloyds Pharmacy as a chemist back in Dudley, the town he originally hails from. Working in industry with Lloyds cemented Ian’s desire to own and run his own pharmacy.

Ian, his wife Margaret and their two daughters began looking for the perfect location for Ian to start his pharmacy and found Bere Alston, a village that could not have been more ideal. Ian and his wife have lived in Bere Alston ever since.

‘Bere Alston is my spiritual home as it is where I am happiest,’ Ian said, adding, ‘you can take the boy out of the Black Country but you can’t take the Black Country out of the boy!’

The idyllic and picturesque Tamar Valley reminds him very much of the moors in Yorkshire, where some of his wider family live.

Twenty eight years of running his own pharmacy have naturally afforded Ian a wealth of experience and have allowed him to bank many happy memories.

Some of Ian’s best anecdotes involve the occasional yet perennial confusion with medical lexis and drug names (such as the mispronunciation of prostate as ‘prostrate’), meeting one eccentric young junior doctor he described as ‘a colourful character’ who brashly strode in and announced in quite fruitful language how his back was in great pain and one great story of a wholesaler who just about made it into the pharmacy one particularly bad winter’s day. He was white as a sheet and rendered speechless after attempting to battle severely harsh and inclement weather in his van which was sliding to and fro on the main road into the village which was coated with snow and ice.

In all his years of service, Ian has witnessed many changes in the pharmaceutical industry. The two most notable advancements he has experienced are in technology and medical research, both of which are responsible for revolutionising operations. For example, since he started in 1993, up to three times as many prescriptions can now be dispensed, guidelines are significantly more indepth and patient interventions can be specifically further tailored to suit an individual’s medical requirements as complexities professionals were previously beset by have become more accessible and understandable.

Now his retirement is in full swing, Ian has many things to do. First and foremost, Ian and his wife are planning to head to New Zealand as soon as they can as they are avid to meet their new grandson in person; Ian’s youngest daughter studied for a degree in languages which initially took her to Paris where she met her husband and the two then subsequently moved to New Zealand to pursue exciting new opportunities.

Ian is also an avid fisherman, regularly utilising a particular hotspot on the River Tavy renowned for sea trout. He is also very eager to crack on with some home brewing, read through a stack of books, play more of the guitar and work on some minor home renovations, although he said he certainly wouldn’t ever rule out still doing a few days work in the pharmacy!

Ian said the things he would miss most were twofold; first of all: his staff, with whom he had developed strong relationships over two decades, whose vehment work ethic has been instrumental to the smooth running of the pharmacy’s day-to-day operations; second, the many generations of customers in the community, friends and family alike, who he credits as always having been ‘so well-mannered and good-humoured’.

Ownership of Bere Peninsula Pharmacy changed hands in June of this year and now continues under Jaspal Singh Grewal.