'A real trailblazer' Emma follows her Mum's steps into pharmacy

"All the prescription labels back then were done on typewriters," Emma says, speaking from her own pharmacy in Inverell in regional NSW.

"So, Mum would be working away on one typewriter and I would be typing pretend labels on another typewriter," she said.

"Mum's pharmacy was only a block away from the Cowra Primary School. Sometimes she would give me jobs to do such as sweeping the front footpath or washing the reusable glass bottles.

"I was always paid in lollies, that was the currency and I remember Mum used to sell them singularly from a big glass jar, Cobblers or bullets or whatever I liked."

She said it was "quite a lucrative" payout as a primary school student.

It was only as she grew older that Emma realised her mother, Janet Freebairn was a trailblazer in pharmacy and that early exposure played a big part in her decision to pursue her own career.

"I loved spending time in my mother's shop. When i got older i realised she was a bit of a trailblazer in the world of pharmacy."

In some respects she followed in those footsteps, attending the same university as her mother had - Sydney University - and studying in the same college rooms for the same degree.

Janet had earned her bachelor's degree in Pharmacy MPS in the 1960s, venturing into what at the time was a heavily male dominated industry, but Emma said she loved helping other people.

Janet worked as a locum all around the state, then after her marriage she settled into her role at a local pharmacy in Cowra.

At the time, her employer was due for retirement, presenting her with an opportunity to buy Kritsch's Pharmacy, there she thrived in her ability to aid the Cowra community in health and well being until her retirement in 2000.

Emma remembers a conversation with her mother after she became engaged to her husband, Tim, a cattle farmer from Delungra, a tiny regional town with a population of only 650, about a half an hour's drive from Inverell.

"I visited my Mum at home and announced to her that I was getting married, and she said, 'that's lovely dear, when is Tim moving to Cowra?'.

"To which I replied that Tim was not moving to Cowra, he has cattle and a farm in Delungra.

"She asked me if that meant I was leaving and I had to tell her yes.

"A week later she put the business on the market."

Emma said the transition to moving from working in a pharmacy in Sydney, to a stint working in the pharmacy in Cowra, to a cattle farm in Delungra was an adjustment initially but she soon came to love her new life.

"It was a big change that's for sure, but it was a very happy change, and quite a big, wonderful new adventure," Emma said.

"Moving to Inverell for work I just walked in and it felt like a friendly, country town which is what I was used to in Cowra, so it didn't take me long to settle in once I started working.

"Mum had grown up in Cowra, she knew the majority of her customer base, and then If I was around I'd stay near her and they would get to know me, and I could interact with them, it was just a really lovely comfortable community connection, you've really got that feeling of being part of the town."

Emma said it is that ethos of community orientated association and connection that she loves about working at Campbell and Freebairn Chemists in Inverell, where she is a business partner with Brendon Campbell who she met in 2007.

"This pharmacy has a really strong family focus," she said.

"I think that is so important, especially in this day and age.

"For female Pharmacists, they know that child birth and maternity leave is not going to effect their career or their ability to make a living and that is something that we really encourage and something that is close to my heart."