It's unlikely these days that any of us would trust our health to a chemist's shop known as 'Dirty Dick's' - but for more than 100 years, that's where many Newcastle folk would go to if they were suffering a medical ailment.
One item in the Evening Chronicle in 1895 advertising a product called Capko Tablets claimed the tablets could "cure toothache instantly", "cure cold in the teeth", and "cure neuralgia and abscesses". Decades ahead of the arrival of modern dentistry and antibiotics, it was of course wishful thinking, but for people with little money, living in age before the NHS existed, 'miracle cures' like this were regularly sought after to help alleviate illness, pain or discomfort.
One of the shops where you could buy Capko Tablets - alongside an A to Z of other health treatments - noted the Chronicle advert, was a chemist's shop at 105, Clayton Street, in Newcastle city centre, called J R Forster & Co. It operated under a few different owners from around 1840, finally closing in 1972. For generations of folk who flocked there for its remedies, it was simply known as 'Dirty Dick's' - the nickname deriving from the fact the original shop was never cleaned and was full of dust and cobwebs.
