Dispensing remedies and advice for five decades
WHEN she was a little girl in the Oxfordshire hamlet of Juniper Hill, Lin Freeman was determined to be a pharmacist. This week, she retired from Lloyds Pharmacy at the Wyvern retail park in Derby, after a 50-year career in the profession.
During that half-century, Lin, 72, has dispensed medication and offered advice to countless thousands of people, not to mention administering first aid to folk whose first port of call in an emergency was their local chemist.
Lin said: “My older sister was a dispenser at Boots, and I suppose that was why I had the ambition to follow in her footsteps. My school tried to talk me out of it, believing that I’d be better training to be a teacher. But I was determined.”
At the age of 17, Lin left the closeknit community in which she had grown up to study at the London School of Pharmacy.
“There I was, in the big city, quite unworldly, but keen to learn. It was a three-year course, plus another year on placement. It was very strict, an all-female institution where male visitors had to be signed in, and be out of the building by 10pm.
“It was hard work, too, from early in the morning until seven in the evening. Each year was more difficult than the previous one. In my third year I specialised in pharmacology, which meant conducting experiments on animals, which I didn’t like because I’ve always had a deep respect for any form of life.”
It was the start of the Swinging Sixties, and outside of college Lin and new-found friends did their best to become part of the new culture.
“We had to wear long skirts in the school, but, in the evenings, we shortened our skirts to go out,” Lin said. “Mind you, we still wore long socks!”
After qualifying, Lin spent a year’s placement at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children in Bethnal Green, working under a strict pharmacist. “He was very tough. But, looking back, I appreciate the experience.”
During the power cuts and three-day working week of the 1970s, she was at Guy’s Hospital in Southwark: “We were stationed in the basement, and when the power went off, there we were, dispensing outpatients’ prescriptions by candlelight.”
When she moved to Kent, to a former leper hospital, she found herself dispensing whisky, brandy and rum to elderly patients: “The doctors didn’t prescribe sleeping pills. Instead, it was tots of alcohol.”
It was while working as a pharmacist at Boots in Chatham that she met her future husband, who was from Derby. After she moved to the city, Lin worked at Boots in the Eagle Centre until her son was born.
“I was then in my 30s, and I wanted to spend as much time as
There is no better feeling than someone telling you that you have been a help to them. Lin Freeman
possible watching him grow up, so I became a locum, where I could fit my hours around his school time.”
As a locum, Lin worked for Manor Pharmacies, as one of their ‘dinnerhour ladies’ covering the full-time pharmacists. Then she took up a position at the Well Pharmacy at Chellaston before moving to her final job at the Lloyds branch inside Sainsbury’s at the Wyvern.
She said: “It’s been a hugely varied career, from dispensing medication to giving first aid. People come because they are feeling unwell. It could be anything; someone who is perhaps a diabetic or is having a fit. I’ve had someone faint at the counter. Someone else was complaining of a headache, and it turned out that they had dangerously high blood pressure.
“Things have changed over time, of course. The mystique has disappeared. Occasionally you’ll get that disappointed look when the customer can’t see those bottles with different coloured liquids that were once part of every chemist’s shop.
“But it has been an immensely rewarding time, and there is no better feeling than someone telling you that you have been a help to them. I’ve also loved training pharmacists.”
Lin will also miss the daily interaction with colleagues: “The Covid-19 pandemic has been challenging, and in difficult times you form a special bond with your colleagues. The teamwork has been incredible.”
How will Lin spend her retirement? She said: “Oh, there’s still plenty to do. I’m a member of Weston-on-Trent parish council, and my husband and I are great Derby County fans. I’m also a member of Derbyshire Emergency Volunteers which helps people evacuated from their homes because of things like fires, gas leaks and floods. During the pandemic we’ve also been delivering prescriptions.
“I’m also volunteering to help at Chellaston Library. As you can see, I’m a big believer in volunteering. But I’m also an inveterate hoarder. I hate throwing away the past. I’ve got to sort so many things out. In the end, though, I suspect I’ll end up just moving everything around again.”