A popular Cookstown shoe shop is celebrating 50 years in business this week.
Many will have fond memories of visiting Black’s Shoes in the Co Tyrone town to pick up their school shoes for the year ahead.
The shop is still going to this day and now celebrates half a century on the corner of William Street and the Old Coagh Road.
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Black's Shoes was opened by Stewartie and Henrietta Black in 1972 and just three years later their cousin Jim started working in the shop. Fast forward to today and Jim is the owner, and says he has seen plenty of changes in the shop and the town over the years.
“The business has just kept going and I took it over in 2009, when Stewartie who started it retired at that stage,” Jim told Belfast Live.
“I had worked in it for the last 47 years, I have never worked anywhere else.
“Henrietta and Stewartie were the ones that started it and I went to work for them shortly after that.
“I had meant to look for a better job back in the early days, but I’m still looking!”
Jim says one of the best things about the job is seeing generations of people from Cookstown and the surrounding areas who keep returning.
Jim added: “Children and grandchildren of people who were coming to us back then are coming in now which is great to see.
“I would like to say thank you to everybody over the years because without those people coming in you just wouldn’t be here.
“We must have done something that is half right at least for them to have been coming back over the years.”
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