A FORMER farmer who worked his way up from delivery driver to become one of the heads of an Oxford hospital retires next month.

Ken Hanks, 65, has worked for the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust since 1986, starting his working life for the trust as a driver in its transport department.

But Mr Hanks quickly progressed through the ranks and is now one of the heads of the estates and facilities Department.

He is responsible for the day-to-day management of the John Radcliffe and Churchill Hospitals, in Headington, and the Horton in Banbury.

The grandfather-of-three said he would take “thousands” of memories with him when he left his role on Christmas Eve.

One that sprang to mind, he said, was the time he found himself locked in the old Radcliffe Infirmary, which closed in January 2007, and very nearly had to spend the night there.

He was saved from a dark night alone in the 18th-century building, in Woodstock Road, by a mobile phone and a colleague with superior knowledge of the building.

He said: “I phoned one of my colleagues who, after about 10 minutes and a good laugh, told me how to get on to the roof. At the infirmary there was a sort of tower with a little bridge going across to it.

“So I went across this little bridge, grimly holding on for dear life, and climbed into the tower, which looked like it had been used as a pigeon toilet for about 300 years.

“After carefully climbing down it unscathed, being careful not to ruin my Italian suit, I finally reached the bottom and pushed the door open, only to fall directly out of it flat on my face.”

Mr Hanks said his retirement would also be a time for remembering old friends, some of whom were now, sadly, dead.

Among them was Julia Durbin, former HR manager at the hospital, who died in a car accident in the 1990s, and his former boss Michael Addison, who died of cancer in 2002.

He said: “Julia was a lovely woman and I learned a great deal from Michael.

“They are the only sad memories I‘ll take with me, really. The thing I’ll miss the most about the place is the people around me.

“My colleagues and the patients at the hospital – they are fantastic, and I mean that sincerely.”

Mr Hanks, who lives in Banbury, said he planned to spend his retirement fly fishing and working on his allotment with his wife Carol.