The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7495 p381
29 March 2008

Society summary

DEATHS

TRIBUTES

Ashworth Recently, Frank Ashworth, aged 87, of 5 Baillie Road, Guildford GU1 3LN.

Mr Ashworth registered in 1942 and retired from the Register in 2005.


Reid On 14 March, Marjorie Elizabeth Reid (née Cruickshanks), aged 79, of 6 Cramond Place, Dalgety Bay, Dunfermline, Fife KY11 5LS.

Mrs Reid registered in 1950 and retired from the Register in 1998.

Tributes

Davies In a tribute to the late Peter James Davies (PJ, 8 March 2008, p290), MALCOLM PARKER writes:

Peter Davies was in the department of pharmacy when I took up the headship in 1976. My first impression was of a man of enthusiasm and energy. As well as being a dedicated teacher he was keen to foster links with industry and to this end was instrumental in establishing a small-scale manufacturing unit.

He had a good sense of humour, which went a long way in enabling him to foster his interests in the crowded curriculum. Such vigour and humour served him well with staff and students alike.

I shared with Peter the condition of deafness and we could laugh together at some of the situations this could create in staff meetings. He was always cheerful and positive in all that he did and will be remembered with affection by all who worked with him.

Grainger In a tribute to the late Herbert Searle Grainger (PJ, 15 March 2008, p321), BILL BROOKES writes:

It was with much sadness that I heard of the recent death of yet another stalwart of hospital pharmacy — Bert Grainger. Bert was the first hospital pharmacist — and one of only three, the others being Colin Hitchings and Ann Lewis — to serve as President of the Pharmaceutical Society.

But it is for his work for the Guild of Hospital Pharmacists and especially his time as salaries and staff side secretary that I remember him best.

He cut his teeth in pharmaceutical politics with the guild in Birmingham. This was a good grounding for those often bruising battles he had with the management side of Pharmaceutical Whitley Council as he sought to improve the salaries of hospital pharmacists in the 1950s and early ’60s. His move to Europe in 1965 was its gain and the guild’s loss.

But Europe’s loss in 1980 was the Methodist Church’s gain when he returned to England. He worked tirelessly as a local preacher and with the prison service long after a lesser person would have stepped down.

Bert still retained his interest in hospital pharmacy after his retirement and it was a pleasure to catch up with him at the guild’s weekend school in Gatwick in 1994. The guild was launching the publication of ‘A history of the Evans medal’. Bert was a recipient in 1965 at 17 Bloomsbury Square, the same year he was made an honorary guild member.

He, Evelyn Button, guild president when the medal was instituted, and Charles Robinson, a director of Evans Medical at that time, shared many memories on a very happy occasion. All, alas, are no longer with us.

The last time I saw Bert was at a leaving occasion for Ann Lewis last year at Lambeth. Although looking frail he obviously enjoyed the opportunity of catching up with friends and colleagues and still had hopes for the future of the profession.

The ranks of those who fought for the recognition of hospital pharmacists in terms of status and salaries grow ever thinner. We remember with gratitude the part Bert Grainger played in those struggles.

Huntley In a tribute to the late Dorothy Joan Huntley (PJ, 15 March 2008, p321), STUART MOUL, Avon Local Pharmaceutical Committee secretary, writes:

We are deeply saddened by the passing away of Dorothy Huntley on Tuesday 4 March 2008, in Frenchay Hospital, Bristol. I had the pleasure of serving with Dorothy when she was chairman of the Bristol and district branch of the Society from 1984–85 and also when she was a committee member of Avon LPC.

Dorothy and her husband Arthur were both graduates of the Bristol school of pharmacy and worked for many years in their community pharmacy in St George, Bristol. After their retirement Dorothy retained an active interest in the local branch regularly attending the meetings.

It has been a pleasure and delight knowing Dorothy, who was a member of the “old school” and will be greatly missed by us all.

Pipe In a tribute to the late Arthur Percival Pipe (PJ, 22 March 2008, p348), DONALD DAVISON writes:

The son of a Baptist minister, having been educated at Taunton School, Percy Pipe qualified in 1936 from the Welsh school of pharmacy, where he had been chairman of the Pharmacy Students’ Association.

At the end of the 1939–45 war, he was superintendent chemist of the Co-operative Society’s pharmacy operations in Cardiff. He joined the Royal Navy and as a sub-lieutenant became captain of a minesweeper based in Malta.

While he was away, the National Co-operative Chemists Ltd, formed in 1945, acquired the Cardiff pharmacy operations. Thus he became, without knowing anything about it, one of the first employees of NCC Ltd.

After demobilisation he became branch manager in Cardiff, then Castleford, Yorkshire before being appointed southern area supervisor based in Cardiff, with an are stretching from Pembroke Dock to Lowestoft.

This was where my association with Percy began when I became northern area supervisor in 1949. As NCC expanded we became area managers, he in the South West and me in the North West. He remained in that position until he retired in 1975.

He had always been a keen player of rugby and cricket, but he was bitten by the golf “bug” during his time at Castleford and, so, in retirement he was able to pursue this passion and his talent for painting and sketching until well into his 80s when macular degeneration put paid to both.

Percy Pipe was a lovely man; quietly spoken, he always bore an air of quiet authority. In the nature of things I am one of the few ex-colleagues who knew him, but his legend lives on in the innumerable anecdotes that are retold whenever his name crops up — which is often. Sadly missed.