Michies Pharmacy: Meet the family behind the iconic chemist

Press and Journal

21-05-2025

Before meeting the Michies' – the family behind the string of pharmacies across Aberdeen and the north-east – I asked a few friends what came to mind when they heard the name.
I expected answers about the 100-year history, childhood trips to the shop at 391 Union Street – there since 1979 and still home to a friendly café in the basement – or maybe the Santa's Grotto the family ran each year.
But no. Most just wanted to know what exactly is in the Union Street cafe's unbelievably delicious chocolate crispies.
'Ha!' laughs Charles Michie, the son of pharmacy founder Charles Michie and who at 83 still oversees the business alongside his brother John Michie, 84. 'It's a family secret.'
I've had one — and it's incredible. 'Probably about a million calories,' John warns, but every single one is worth it.
Sweet-treat recipes, however, aren't the only things the Michies like to keep to themselves.
A search through the P&J archives turns up no family interviews, few photographs — and even fewer headlines.
'We don't like to make noise,' John whispers to me conspiratorially as he joins a cross-generational selection of Michies for a rare P&J photo.
But hitting 100 years in business — as Michies did in 2021 — has made some noise inevitable.
That milestone gave the Michies a reason to look back; and for the first time, share their story.
Last year, the family commissioned freelance curator Lynne Clark to design an exhibition exploring the pharmacy's century-long story, drawing on a remarkable archive of objects and memories.
Mounted in the basement of their Union Street store, there are hand-painted specie jars, drawers labelled in looping script, and elegant old ingredient containers.
'We used to make up our own ointments, cough mixtures, the lot,' says Charles, who even remembers mixing up what must have been one of Aberdeen's very first curry powder.
'There was a woman from the West End who ordered it once a year,' he says. 'I remember the shop reeking of it for days.'
The exhibition also tells the story of the Michie family itself.
Charles Alexander Michie trained as a pharmacist before serving in the Medical Corps during World War I. After the war, he opened his first shop at 123 Crown Street.
By the 1950s, he had built a small chain, including the landmark 231 Union Street shop.
He died in 1963, when John and Charles were just 23 and 21. His death left a vacancy at the head of the family business that his sons stepped into.
It hadn't quite been the plan – John had been studying accountancy; Charles had wanted to become a vet. But duty called.
'Well, the bottom line was that it was the family business,' says Charles, who at the time still hadn't qualified as a chemist. One had to be brought in so they could legally stay open.
So the brothers took over, and put in motion a family partnership that has lasted for more than 60 years.
In that time, it has witnessed an expansion of Michies shops around the north-east and the boom years of the oil and gas miracle, all the way to the present day and the more modern issues of online shopping and bus gates.
And yet, the business has endured, shaped by the brothers and their family's north-east farming background that valued hard work and loyalty.
'I don't think we took it over,' John says. 'I think it took US over.'
With Charles and John in charge, expansion came gradually.
After keeping the Union Street and Park Street pharmacies going through the 1960s, the brothers added a third in 1968 at Powis Terrace. More followed: Rosemount, Banchory, Laurencekirk, Inverbervie, Portlethen.
New branches followed across the north-east — some, like Stonehaven, discovered by chance on a rainy day.
'There were quite a lot of pharmacists retiring,' Charles recalls, 'and they were quite happy that we should take them over, which is what we did.'
But despite their hard work, both brothers put the success of the business down to something else – luck.
'Serendipity,' says John. 'Being in the right place at the right time.'
They credit the timing of retirements, the loyalty of staff and the stability of having two brothers at the helm. They simply took opportunities as they came.
Even the current flagship premises at 391 Union Street – a short walk from Charles Snr's original shop – came to them through a quirk of timing.
It had space for both a shop and a basement café — a rare combination for a high street pharmacy. Opened in 1982, it remains the best-known of the seven Michies branches still running today.
As the oil boom transformed Aberdeen, the Michies adapted — even briefly opening a tack shop for the city's growing equestrian set.
'There were no livery yards in Aberdeen,' John recalls. 'But once the oil workers started settling here, they brought their families — and their ponies.'
Through all of this, Charles and John led the company together. Though ask them today how they did so, and they find it tough to explain.
'There's no dynamic, we just do our own thing,' John says with a laugh.
Charles is equally circumspect. 'John gets on with the accounts, I do the pharmacy.'
While the brothers' partnership has endured six decades, the environment around them is very different. And few places have felt that change more sharply than the city centre.
Footfall has dropped by half since the brothers first opened their doors. And although services like podiatry and travel clinics help, they're increasingly fighting a tide of online delivery.
'The thing that's eroding our type of business is home delivery from a van,' John says. 'Despite the fact we know it's killing off shops, even my wife does it. Ninety percent of what she buys comes that way.'
People come into town less often, and the very idea of a community pharmacy is being tested by large-scale chains and algorithms.
If online delivery is eroding the high street, the Michies believe their secret weapon is something Amazon can't offer: people.
Staff loyalty runs deep here — and goes both ways. Many employees have stayed for decades. Some met their partners on the job. Others brought their children in to work summer shifts, who then trained and qualified as pharmacists themselves.
One Saturday girl is now lead pharmacist. 'She started on the shop floor,' says John. 'We put her through Robert Gordon's, and now she's one of our managers. Probably the best we've got.'
With Charles now 83 and John 84, the obvious question is what happens next.
There are a lot of younger Michies involved in the business, most visibly Charles' daughter Rosemary, who was behind the drive to collate the family archives.
Dan Michie, John's grandson, tells me he's about to start business studies at Aberdeen university after practically growing up in the shops.
His first job was as a teenager working in the basement cafe.
Another of John's grandchildren, Lauren Michie, is also a student while working at Michies head office over the summer.
For now, however, the brothers still have their hands on the tiller.
John, ever the strategist, is already thinking about how their city-centre shop can adapt. He hopes to host community sessions on smoking cessation and long-term conditions.
'I think group settings work,' he says. 'People see their own challenges reflected in others. They support each other. That's what we want to build.'
He's also keen to lean into NHS Scotland's growing push to make pharmacies a more central part of frontline healthcare — a shift both brothers see as vital for the future of their industry.
As for Charles, he shows no sign of stepping away. He says it's a standing joke in the company that the only thing that will get him out of the shop is six feet long and two feet wide.
As for the Michies recipe for success? Like the crispies, it's staying in the family.