Final shift for Casualty’s Charlie, 75

ON screen, has had heart attacks, been shot and even hit by an ambulance.

And now, after 7 years and 900 episodes of surviving some of the most brutal scenes in soap history, Derek Thompson, 75, is hanging up his stethoscope as Charlie Fairhead in Casualty.

The long-serving star, pictured, will shoot his last scenes for the BBC medical drama this autumn with a dramatic final exit due to air next year. Viewers have watched Charlie – who is based on the show’s nursing consultant Pete Salt – since he appeared as a freshfaced nurse in the first episode in 1986. While Thompson has left and returned several times, this is set to be his final goodbye. Thompson said: ‘I have tried to bring to Charlie the compassion, kindness, heroism and sound judgment that we all see and love in Pete.’