A REFORMED alcoholic is teaching students about the effects of alcohol after kicking the bottle and fulfilling a vow to become a university lecturer.

Fred Harris was an alcoholic for 20 years but today he is a permanent research fellow and lecturer at the Forensic Department of the University of Central Lancashire in Preston.

In 1990, with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, Fred, 50, of Linthorpe Road, Blackburn, quit the drink and embarked on an academic career. He had suffered years in the alcoholic wilderness after his first failed university stint at Bradford in 1970, when he quit to get a job. After he completed his degree in biochemistry with microbiology with at UCL in 1993, after a stint at Blackburn College, Fred told the Lancashire Evening Telegraph he wanted to be a university lecturer.

From there, Fred studied for a PhD and carried out post-doctoral work in Holland, Germany and the USA.

But just as Fred was set to take up a post as a permanent research fellow at the Preston university, he discovered his wife Nuala dead on the sofa after a sudden illness at the age of 46.

Fred said: "It was her drive and support that really helped me through.

"Although I had stopped drinking, trying to get a job was difficult and it was only her love that kept me going. We were almost there, I got the job, we were on the way."

Yet, the memory of Nuala enabled Fred prevented Fred from reverting to drink.

Today he lectures, among other subjects, in forensic toxicology which covers what effects alcohol can have on the body, for example if someone was driving.

Students on the course use their knowledge to enter many professions including the police.

And Fred is also taking part in a Channel 5 TV programme called The Forensic School which follows his work and that of his colleagues.

Fred said his success is all down to the support of his step-daughters Jackie Brookes and Gillian Rhodes and his late parents Ken and Doreen Harris.

He said: "When Nuala died, I would never have got through without the support of my daughters.

"My parents supported me all the way through. Hopefully what has happened to me can give support to other alcoholics."