ONE of the first employees to work at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Ulverston has died at the age of 93. Alec Murray Swann died peacefully at Furness General Hospital after his health began to fade earlier in the year. He was one of the first GSK employees to transfer from the company’s site at Barnard Castle when the plant in Ulverston opened in 1948. He and wife Helen, known as Nora, bought a plot of a land and designed and built a new family home in which they and children Sara, Paul and Fiona could begin a new life. Mr Swann was born in Barnard Castle in 1927. His father served as a batman (personal aide) for one of the Queen Mother’s brothers during the First World War, and later became her personal chauffeur.