AN era will end on Saturday when a mobile butcher who has served Wharfedale's villages for almost four decades hangs up his apron and jets off for a new life in Spain - as a security guard.

For more than 36 years, George Johnson has driven his van around Bramhope, Arthington, Pool, Castley, Weeton, North Rigton and Beckwithshaw but - despite his best efforts to sell his business - on Saturday he will take a well-earned retirement and jet off to a new life in Majorca.

He has been unable to sell his business, which serves 150 people, many of them elderly, because of a lack of interest in what he claims is a declining profession - and problems with BSE and foot and mouth.

Mr Johnson, 62, said that he was sad to leave people he had known for so long.

He first took over the round on an occasional basis as a relief manager for the Leeds Co-op back in 1963.

Not only has he delivered meat to people who can not get out, he also carries out odd jobs for them as well.

"I've had a lot of pleasure and satisfaction in the last 36 years.

"It is not just a job, it's been my life and I have given them my customers the best service possible.

"I've done odd jobs for those less able like carrying coal for one old lady, delivering mail, taking prescriptions and stuff like that - I feel as if I'm part of these communities.

"I remember a good few years back lifting an old man out of the bath after he'd been stuck there for hours. All the water had drained out and he had stiffened so he couldn't move.

"It has been very difficult to break the news of my retirement to some of them. I will miss them all and I am thinking of people even now - they are my friends."

Mr Johnson said he took up the round on a permanent basis in 1966 and when the Co-op stopped running mobile butchers.

Three years later, he took over the business with struggling Bradford butcher Geoff Boocock.

Since 1984, Mr Johnson has been sole owner.

He added: "I've seen generations come and go in these villages.

"People haven't really changed, but some of the villages have. "Old Pool Bank is the same, but Pool itself is changing and the old school at Hilton Grange is now housing. A lot of

villages have become bigger."

Mr Johnson, of Haven Close, Cookridge, said that he had tried to find a buyer for his business without success.

"I'm very sad that I can't find anyone to carry on. There is no new blood coming into this business anyway. I would have liked to have left it as I found it, but it's not to be."

Now Mr Johnson is looking forward to a new life with his partner in Majorca - acting as a security guard on the site of a renovation of a Spanish castle in Puerto Pollenca.

"It is a dream come true. At the moment it seems like a holiday, except that I'm not coming back.

"I'll miss the people and the villages though, and although I won't miss snowy country roads in winter, I won't forget the people here," he added.