John Hogarth

Conlons Opticians' dispensing optician John Hogarth has died. He was 54.
John started his optical career in November 1975, writes John Welsby, Conlons managing director, when he trained to become a dispensing optician with Gledhills in Keighley.
After passing his dispensing exams he decided to further his development by training to fit contact lenses. Moving to Canada in 1979 he spent a couple of years working with ophthalmic surgeons taking up the challenge of fitting all types of lenses.
When he returned to the UK he put himself forward as an ABDO examiner. He also progressed to director of contact lenses with Conlons in the north west. John's desire was to qualify as an optometrist and on various occasions during his career he had made plans to pursue this. Circumstances at the time prevented this, however, though he was never daunted and was very determined that one day he would achieve his ambition.
The career progression degree course became available at Bradford University and of course this aroused John's ambitions again. He decided to invest a considerable amount of his savings to achieve his goal. In May 2004 he started in Bradford living at his old family home in Keighley throughout the week and returning to Cumbria at the weekends. He thoroughly enjoyed it and rose to the challenge of gaining his degree in optometry.
John started his pre-reg year with Conlons in the Lake District in September; he was renowned for his chair-side manner and had an innate ability to make patients feel at ease. His newly acquired optometric expertise, together with his years of experience as a contact lens optician, would have made him a great asset to the profession.
Following his first interview with his college assessor, John was very keen to hone his new-found skills, and even up to the middle of November he was preparing the initial drafts of his case records for his PQE assessment.
He died at the New Year after a short illness. He leaves his wife, Margaret, and two children, Janine and Jonathon.