Local history

Dr Stewart Adams left school at 16 and worked as a pharmacy apprentice at Boots. At this time he admits he "wasn't really that ambitious".

Discontent with working behind a counter he achieved in getting a scholarship and left his home in Northamptonshire to do a degree in pharmacy in Nottingham.

One of his early jobs was to help produce penicillin at a factory on Daleside Road in the city, growing the mould using a million milk bottles.

The story as to how Dr Stewart Adams, and his colleague John Nicholson, developed Ibuprofen is best explained by himself in our interview, however he's very modest about the discovery:

Dr Stewart Adams (right) in the 1960s

"It wasn't only just me... it was a bit like an upturned pyramid really, we start right out at the bottom with myself and one technician and then as it expands it goes out and more people of all sorts of disciplines and interests come into it. I don't like to be considered as the inventor."

There's an old adage about headaches and the marital bed, so how does Dr Stewart feel about saving countless marriages over the years? He says, while laughing:

"I hadn't given any trials in that respect!"

Listen to our interview with Dr Stewart Adams: