A much-loved Cardiff shoe shop has announced that it will be closing after 52 years of trading. Jon Ian, based in the Morgan Arcade, has announced that the store will soon be closing its branch in the city centre.
David Thomas set up the store in 1971 after returning to Wales from London. A farmer's son from Wick, David had been managing director of Kurt Geiger's shop on Bond Street in the 1960s and wanted to come home to Wales to establish his family business in the Morgan Arcade. The shop opened when David's daughter, Esther Hitchcock, was seven, and her father became her mentor in the business.
"The shoe industry was definitely in our bloodstream and it was passed on," Esther said. "The shop has been very much part of my life growing up, [I was] always in there on holidays and high days - it was just learning all about the shoes and business in general.
