Harry, a retired pharmacist, has fond memories of working in Bolton town centre.

In particular Harry, aged 78, can remember the 1950s when he worked for Timothy Whites.

Timothy Whites in Bradshawgate was where the Smalls Army Store used to be and the building is now used as a takeaway.

There were other Timothy Whites stores in Victoria Square and in Newport Street.

Harry was born at Townley’s Hospital — Bolton General Hospital — and lived in Peel Street, Westhoughton, with his parents Margaret and Harry and younger brother Ian.

He was a pupil at Rivington and Blackrod Grammar School and left at the age of 15 to work as an apprentice at the chemist shop Timothy Whites in Wigan Road Deane — today it is a Boots the Chemist.

“When Christmas approached I was sent, as a slave, to the shop in Bradshawgate,” laughs Harry fondly.

It was opposite Yates’s Wine Lodge and had a wines and spirits licence.

Young Harry had, among many duties, to go to what is now The Vaults in the Market Place and collect bottles of alcohol from the storage cellars, a business called Ross Monroe’s.

Back at Timothy Whites the pharmacists would “make up bottles of medicine” explains Harry.

“People would come in with, say, a tickly cough and we would make something up for them,” he explains.

During his time with Timothy Whites he also worked at the Newport Street store when a “proper posh” sales assistant was heard asking a customer, on Christmas Eve, if he would like “a love affair for 12 and six” which was responded to by the customer with the reply: “You are not half cheap love.” Her proposition was simply for him to buy a rather fancy perfume for his wife, laughs Harry.

He also remembers the telephone number at Newport Street often being confused with that of the Hippodrome in Bolton and when people rang asking for the Hippodrome the manager at the time, Mr Barlow, would reply with “this is the happy drome not the hippodrome”.

Timothy Whites sold the rather “exotic” cosmetic brands of the time such as Elizabeth Arden and Revlon, says Harry.

Harry went on to learn his trade and work for chemist shops not only in Bolton but also in Westhoughton, Chorley and Atherton, where he now lives.

Although far too young to drink Harry was taken one Sunday, after work, to the pub. “I’d never been in a pub before and when he asked what I wanted I suggested a sherry,” he recalls.