THIRTY-NINE years since she founded community pharmacy and newsagency Kalamunda Nightingales, Francine Middleton was ready to retire.

Mrs Middleton said she grew up in Kalgoorlie and later moved to Perth for school, where she graduated with a pharmacy degree in 1967 at Curtin University.

A year after she graduated, she married her husband Tony who studied engineering.

“His work was in the country so I went off with him.

“We spent time in the Pilbara and the Kimberley and during that time I managed a pharmacy in Port Hedland.

“Then I had two boys and Tony was posted in Northam in 1974, and we were there for six years.

“I was working in three pharmacies in Northam at that time but because of the children, I really couldn’t do more than a few hours a couple of times a week.”

Mrs Middleton said they moved back to Perth in 1980 with their four children, three boys and a girl.

“In 1984 I started managing a pharmacy in Rockingham.

“The opportunity came with this newsagency being for sale and I thought a pharmacy newsagency would work because often when people are sick, they need something to read.

“At the time I felt like I needed to be doing something more,” she said.

In the 1980s Mrs Middleton said there weren’t many pharmacies in the area.

“There were pharmacies in the main street and one near St Brigid’s and I think that was about all at that stage.

“(It) felt like we could do more by putting another pharmacy there.

“As the children grew up, they all worked in the pharmacy and although none of them have become pharmacists, unfortunately, I think they all enjoyed their time there.

“A lot of their friends and young people from the Kalamunda area have worked there.

“I really enjoyed getting to know all the people and their parents and being involved.

“It’s definitely been very much a community-based pharmacy.”

Mrs Middleton said she experienced hardship because she was a woman who wanted to start a business in those days.

“I always felt like I was being condescended to.

“When I went to borrow the money to start the pharmacy, I was patted on the back and told, ‘why don’t you just leave it to the big boys?’.

“I thought, ‘we’re not going to wait around – we’re going to get out there and do it’.

“I have a granddaughter who is 30 and she’s got her own apartment and she’s done all of that by herself.

“I think back to my time when there was no way that I would have been able to have the support that she has today without having my husband and our assets behind us.”

She said she wouldn’t have made it through the challenges without the support of her family.

“The kids were always very understanding of my having to work long hours and not necessarily being there for the ball games and the football games as time went on but we managed.

“Now I get to see a lot of my grandchildren playing all those sports.”

She said it’s important for people who wanted to start a business to believe in themselves.

“Don’t let people touch you on the back and say, ‘leave it to somebody else’.

“Do what you want to do and make it for yourself.”