Kojonup pharmacist Bruce Warland retires after more than 32 years running the local chemist

Kojonup is the sort of place where Saturday mornings are often leisurely. The usual flush of traffic on Albany Highway slows to a trickle as the main street takes a day off from its usual pace. On the surface, it looks as if there are very few people around. A short turn-off the highway on to Benn Parade last Saturday, and it was a different story. Cars were parked on the kerb as others made their way up the hill to the town oval. Yet there was no sign of any football or cricket being played. Walking up to the rooms at the Kojonup Sporting Complex, the quietness of the town was overtaken by the din of a crowd. The reason for this community gathering was mingling in the crowd, the star of his own retirement party. For more than 32 years, Bruce Warland has been the go-to man for anyone wanting medical advice in Kojonup. It is a job which can go without plaudits, but for a town such as Kojonup, it is so vital. Mr Warland took control of the Kojonup Pharmacy in 1989 after spending a few years overseas and working in Perth pharmacies. The move was a natural choice. “I knew that I was a country person and I was always going to come out into the country,” he said. When he did move to Kojonup, it took him a while to fit in. “It took me a while to venture outside the pharmacy and get involved with organisations,” he said. One organisation which did not give him much choice was the local Apex club. He had been in town for only three weeks when members of the club showed up at the pharmacy with some surprising news. “They had told me that they had a meeting and they voted me in even though I hadn’t even applied and said I was to be there next Wednesday night for the meeting.” “I was bemused and thought ‘that’s really cheeky’ but these guys were full of confidence and I thought ‘well, I’ll come along’, and I enjoyed it.” It started what would be a long association with community groups, including time as president of the Kojonup Apex Club, sitting on the board of the local hospital and aged care home, and even a few acting roles with the Kojonup Theatrical Society. “I wanted to be a part of the community,” he said. “The reasons that I came to the country was because I felt that I wanted to do pharmacy and that it would help me with my social life.” Mr Warland’s job has helped him build community connections across generations. One of his happy long-time customers, former baker Michael Atherton, refers to Mr Warland as “Doctor Bruce”. “You could walk in and say ‘Doctor Bruce, I’ve got something wrong with me. Do you think you can give me something or do I need to go to the hospital?’,” Mr Atherton said. “He would say ‘try this and try a bit of that, and if that doesn’t work we will try something else.” At other times, Mr Warland’s medical advice has been more serious. Speaking to the crowd at Saturday’s farewell event, Mr Warland said he was reminded by one woman that he had “saved her life” after she had an unexpected anaphylactic reaction to a bee sting. He attributes part of his ability to identify serious situations to his wife Judith, who has worked at Kojonup Hospital as a nurse. “Between the two of us, we discuss the various conditions and I’ve learnt from her some of the potential dangerous symptoms that she has seen in her nursing career and if someone comes into the pharmacy, you sort of think twice and you do refer people,” he said. Yet one of the most fulfilling parts of his career came at the end, when he was administering COVID-19 vaccinations in the pharmacy. He said the intimate setting would see him unexpectedly find out new and sometimes sensitive details about his customers’ lives. “It’s just me and them sitting in the back office where nobody else can hear,” he said. “I found it really good and I found it really fulfilling.” Mr Warland finished up at the pharmacy last week, making the end of a career which spanned three decades and handing over the baton to the owners of Katanning’s pharmacies. He and his wife Judith will spend a few more months in Kojonup before packing their bags and moving to their new home in Bunbury. For Mr Atherton, the departure of the Warland family was “going to leave a hole in this town”. “If you’re down and out, it doesn’t take much for Bruce to get you smiling again and feeling like ‘well, it’s good to be alive’,” he said. “(Judith) has helped many people manage their diabetes. She’s a lovely person, as are his boys. Tom would come down and help his father at the chemist for a couple of weeks here and there. They are just a beautiful family.” Shire of Kojonup president Ned Radford said the town was “losing a bit of an icon”. “It will be sad to see both Bruce and Judith go,” Mr Radford said. “I think the community will miss Bruce’s dry sense of humour and his pleasantness.”