Jennie Lightbourne comes from a line of pharmacists.

Despite strong urging from her father and grandfather, she wasn’t drawn to the profession.

Both were pharmacists who owned their own pharmacies in Ireland. Mrs Lightbourne took a different path.

“I decided I wanted to be a famous singer,” she said.

In university, she focused on music and dance — and then at 21 she set about travelling the world to make her dream happen.

She and a friend spent six weeks journeying through Africa where they organised a mix of original music and cover songs they could perform.

By the time they reached Perth, Australia, their band had a name — Luca’s Child. It was 2000. Social media didn’t exist.

“We would walk into radio stations and big ourselves up,” Mrs Lightbourne said.

The pair would ask for a cassette tape of their interviews. They’d then send it on to the next town with a self-written “blurb” and a picture of them playing their guitars.

It worked.

“We got loads of work playing in pubs,” she said. “We played in a lot of Irish bars — guitar, folk music, popular music and gave it all an Irish twist. It was an amazing experience.”

Mrs Lightbourne “always” sang and enjoyed acting and performing arts.

She taught herself how to play the guitar sometime around the age of 16; Luca’s Child seemed the perfect step towards her superstar career.

And then it came to an end.

“We’d had enough of each other — as you do when you’re with someone all the time — and we decided to go back and see our families. Craig, my partner in crime, wanted to go back and do teaching. I became a secretary.”

She took courses in office administration and sports massage therapy, which changed her direction completely.

“After a year I decided to become a sports masseuse,” she said.

A job with an alternative health centre exposed her to a herbalist who would make “all sorts of creams, capsules according to what their patients needed”.

“It was quite an education but eventually my arm started to hurt from all the massage and I figured my thumbs wouldn’t last 30 years,” Mrs Lightbourne said.

She decided to retrain. Pharmacy was the obvious choice. “I’d always worked in my father’s pharmacy and the bit I enjoyed was educating customers on how to help themselves. I realised it’s what [my father] did every day, advising people on their best options.”

The Irish medical system is set up differently than the one here, she explained.

“The first point of call is the pharmacy. You go and ask the pharmacist if you need to see a doctor.”

She met her Bermudian husband, Jonathan Lightbourne, at Brighton University.

“I fully intended to go back to Ireland and work in my father’s pharmacy — that was 13 years ago.”

Mr Lightbourne looked after their first son Lucas for a year, while his wife did the required work experience after she passed her final pharmaceutical exam.

She then got a job with East Surrey Hospital. The family had expanded to four by the time they decided to move to Bermuda five years later.

Mrs Lightbourne worked for Bermuda Hospitals Board but recently quit to open a pharmacy with her husband.

Her dispensary will operate out of Northshore Medical and Aesthetics Centre once she receives final planning approval.

“It’s only a dispensary. No creams and shampoos — just prescriptions, medications and free advice because that’s what I really got into pharmacy to do.

“I enjoyed working in [King Edward VII Memorial Hospital] and the clinical aspects of it but really, why I got into pharmacy was the herbal side of it; watching my dad make up the creams. I really enjoyed making medicine specifically for patients. I would really like to offer that service to people again.”

At the moment, her dream of becoming “a famous singer” is at a standstill.

“I haven’t played in years but I joined Chewstick at their last retreat,” Mrs Lightbourne. “A few people were a bit shocked. Music is not natural to me.

“I can sing, but I’m not like my friend Craig who could pick up any instrument and play it.”