Blackburn solicitor retires after almost 50-year career

Graham Ireland, 65, who was born in Billington and went to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Blackburn, joined Woodcocks Haworth and Nuttall (WHN) from school when he was 17, after going round to multiple firms in Blackburn to enquire about jobs.

WHN was the first firm he visited and, having gone in on a Friday afternoon, was called and asked to start the following Monday, signalling the start of a long and successful career helping people to find places to live.

Colleagues at WHN with Graham (Image: Graham Ireland)

Reflecting on his career, Graham said: “It was a very satisfying job.

"A lot of people think residential conveyancing is boring but I loved it. I can’t imagine me doing anything else.

“I was there for over 40 years so I must have enjoyed it, otherwise I wouldn’t have been there!

“I always fancied the law. When I left school I thought about joining the police force, but I don’t know what swayed me towards the legal profession.

“I went into Blackburn one Friday afternoon and started walking between solicitors’ offices and by the time I got home I had a phone call from the first one asking if I could start the following Monday.”

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Having spent all of his working life with the same firm, the world has no doubt changed from when Graham first walked through the doors at WHN.

At the start of his career, the job was done using manual typewriters, which progressed to electric ones before the company adopted computers.

Graham said: “I won’t miss the phone and emails! When I started you’d send a letter out one day and it’d be a week before you got a reply. Now you send an email out and you get it in 10 minutes!”

Among the other challenges Graham has had to navigate during his career is the changing property market, but he managed to ride these changes and still help people find their homes, noting a particular buzz he got with first-time buyers.

He said: “Generally speaking the property market does tend to go up. It’s very rare you find it dropping.

"We’ve had a couple of instances in my time where the market has actually fallen – once in the 80s and again in the early 2000s.

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“They reckon we’re in for a tough time coming up but it’s not materialised yet, and that’s when you tend to get repossessions, interest rates go up, people can’t afford mortgages. People start to struggle.

“You get a certain buzz when you’re acting for a first-time buyer. The day they get the keys, it’s a nice feeling knowing you’ve done a good job and knowing it’s appreciated.

“I’ve had that job satisfaction throughout my career. I’ve never regretted what I’ve done and it’s going to be a major overhaul for me to stop."

Now that he has stopped, though, Graham will have plenty of time to focus on other aspects of life away from a busy workplace.

He continued: “I would have been at the firm for 49 years this year and there are other things I want to do.

Graham Ireland spent almost 50 years at WHN (Image: Graham Ireland)

“I was fortunate enough 12 months ago, my wife and I bought a small piece of land next to our home and I’ve started gardening on it, putting vegetable plots in, there’s a small greenhouse and a pond.

“I like cycling as well. It means I can pick and choose and go out in good weather rather than on a Saturday or Sunday when it’s pouring down!”

Of course, though, with such a long career Graham will have made relationships with many people, colleagues and clients.

“I’ll miss the clients,” he said. “That’s a certainty because a lot of the people I acted for are people I’ve acted for for many years.

"I was at a stage recently where I was contacted by people who were the grandchildren of people I’d acted for when I first started working there!

“I’ll miss the staff too. I’ve been very fortunate through my career to work with nice people and acting for genuinely nice people.”