Before Niall Bristow joined the ambulance service in Shetland in 1988, the vehicles were driven by hospital porters and gardeners with no medical training.

He initially trained as an ambulance technician, before becoming the isles' sole paramedic in 1992.

Now there are 11 paramedics and six technicians serving the population of 23,000 on Shetland's 16 inhabited islands.

And after a career which has even seen him feature in BBC TV shows like Shetland and Island Medics, Niall is retiring at the age of 61.

There have been ambulances in Shetland since the mid-1970s.

But before Niall joined the team, the service was run by men with manual jobs around the hospital.

They drove patients to hospital but couldn't provide medical care.

"A paramedic simply wasn't a thing", he said.

Originally from Islay in the Inner Hebrides, Niall moved to Shetland at a young age.

He worked for a bank for four years before joining the ambulance service.

Niall said he was looking for a job that would keep him in Shetland, as he was in a "blossoming romance" and was keen to see how it developed.

"I didn't quite know what I was getting myself in for," he admitted.

Niall had no intention of pursuing a medical career but his girlfriend - now wife - showed him the job advert in a newspaper.

"You'd be good at this", she said.

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Niall said one of the big challenges of the job was Shetland's geography, as residents rely on a network of ferries to travel between islands.

"A single job could take up to three or four hours," he said.

Two large ambulances are stationed in Lerwick, Shetland's only town, and three smaller vehicles are based between the islands of Unst, Yell and Whalsay.

Patients travelling from Unst - the most northerly inhabited place in the UK with a population of about 600 - to mainland Shetland have to take two short ferry trips.

They are then transferred to a larger ambulance at the ferry terminal in Lerwick before the journey continues to the isles' Gilbert Bain Hospital.

"These call-outs took up most of our day", Niall said.

One of the most memorable spells of his career was when heavy snow fell on Shetland in December 1995.

It became known as the "Big Snaa" and left thousands of homes without power over Christmas and new year.

Roads were impassable so Niall and his team were flown across the isles by the emergency helicopter.

He said Shetland was brought to a standstill.

"We were picking up pregnant women and taking them to hospital for scans," he recalled.

The size of Shetland meant that Niall frequently encountered a familiar face.

"You were extremely likely to know someone on a call-out," he said.

Niall also said he had lost count of the number of times people said they felt "reassured" because they knew him.

The job also involved sharing tragic news with people he knew very well.

"It was hard and there were many tears," he said

But he said the positives of working in the community "far outweighed the tough challenges".

Niall also praised his colleagues and family for helping him through the difficult times in his career.

Niall also highlighted some of the more surreal moments of being a paramedic, such as his appearance as an extra in the TV crime series Shetland.

He said producers were intrigued by his team's "authentic uniforms", and it was an "exciting task" compared to his usual working days.

Niall also featured in the BBC series Island Medics.

After 38 years he said was "extremely proud" to be leaving the service in good hands.

Niall told BBC Scotland News he was now looking forward to spending more time with his grandson, Arthur.