Staying in business for more than six decades is no mean feat, but Enniskillen pharmacist Paul Hughes says he is just carrying on the groundwork laid out by his mother Laura.
Laura J Hughes first opened Hughes Pharmacy on Belmore Street in 1955, before her son Paul came on board in 1985 where the two worked side by side for many years.
While Laura sadly passed away six years ago, Paul takes pride in the fact that he has continued on her tradition of treating those that come into the shop as friends as well as customers.
“In 1955 my mother started the pharmacy in Belmore Street, obviously at that time it was just a small wee shop as pharmacies tended to be at that time,” Paul told MyFermanagh.
“We lived next door, our townhouse was next door and that’s where I was raised.
“She rowed the boat by herself until I graduated in Sunderland. After working in England for a few years I came home and joined the business in 1985.
“The two of us worked together for a few years and then we took over another pharmacy in Newtownbutler.
“We’ve had the two pharmacies since that and myself and my mother have run them.
“She worked in them well into her 80s and she saw the pharmacy as a reflection of herself.
“She built up a camaraderie with all of her patients, we were always and always have tried to be a very patients based business.
“That was then reciprocated down the years when you found that generations of the same family kept coming back to the pharmacy.”
Paul says he now deals with customers who are grandchildren of those who came into his mother’s premises, and says that is a sign that they are doing something right.
“I am now dealing with people who would have been grandchildren of people who my mother would have dealt with.
“We look upon that as a stamp of approval that we are doing something right when the people keep coming back to us.
“The fact that we are an Enniskillen family, she was a Fermanagh woman, I was born and raised in Fermanagh, we are the only Enniskillen family now running a pharmacy here in the town.
“It makes us feel more and more at home here and people recognise us and can come to us for advice and guidance.”
Times have changed over the years however, Paul added, and the concept of the community pharmacy isn’t as strong as it once was.
“We’ve now become nearly like a multi faceted health service ourselves, it means that you have less and less personal time with your customers.
“I remember in her day my mother would have had a conversation with every single customer that came through the door.
“People have less and less time for that now, and you just be so busy and under pressure as the number of prescriptions going out is just going up and up.
“That said, we pride ourselves on being a community based pharmacy and we always thought of ourselves as being in the heart of our community and that’s how we see ourselves still.”
