As I grew, I became more involved in the chemist. My favourite thing was to watch my father mixing ointments and weighing things on a delicate scale, the type of which, nowadays, is probably used to weigh cocaine. I also remember having to call up doctors, some more than others, who had scrawled the prescription disinterestedly, to clarify which drug and in which strength was being prescribed. My dad had a magnifying glass and often he would ask me if I thought the script said one thing or another. 

Our lives revolved around the pharmacy. There would be times when doctors prescribed drugs that were contraindicated and caused unwelcome interactions when used together. Times also when locum doctors, who had not taken a proper history, had prescribed medication that would have severely worsened a precondition; I can't remember which, but remember it was serious. 

Many of his customers would call on him not only for medicine but for time and acknowledgement - something he gave freely.  Often he was more of a counselor than a pharmacist.

Before computers, records of prescriptions would be kept in these giant - bible-sized books and I was always amazed at how easy it was to find a patient's history using the index. Records also had to kept of certain, habit-forming drugs. Even some cough mixtures, Peracon and Benycod I think, were being used by patients addictively and we would have to limit use and report suspected addictive behavior.

The mark-up system was clear: 33% on medicines and 25% (I think I remember this correctly but it would also have been 50% and 33% respectively) on front-shop goods. I remember how distressing it was when other pharmacists began discounting, and customers chose to have their scripts filled elsewhere. I don't think it was the loss of income that hurt as much as the disloyalty to someone who had committed himself to his customers.

In the last 10 years of my father's life, pharmacy changed radically and a profession, for which one studied for five years plus an apprenticeship, became akin to being a greengrocer. It was not before long that chips and sweets become a revenue source.

My dad was a friendly chap who didn't anger easily. One thing that made him spitting mad was the pharmaceutical society's lack of balls when it came to representing pharmacists. He often cited how doctors had arranged themselves and asked why pharmacists couldn't do the same.

My father died three years ago. A part of me wished he'd been alive to see pharmacists shutting their doors in protest to government's myopic highhandedness. Another part is pleased he didn't have to deal with this latest attack on the pharmacists which, in my judgment, aims to cut healing professionals down at the knees.