Name: Tom Taylor (staff: Howard Taylor, Shirley Phillips, Tina Corker and Carys Sanders)

Business: Direct Blinds, Oswald Road

Opening hours: Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, Saturday 9am to 4.30pm, closed on Sunday

When did you open your business and why?

We OPENED out business here in 1988 and we’ve been in Oswestry ever since then. The reason for opening was pretty much because I wanted my own business. It’s something I had thought about for some time and I eventually decided to go for it and set up my own place here.

It was something completely new at the time, I had never really worked in this sort of business before.

Why in this location?

At THE time I was opening, there wasn’t a blinds shop in the town, so it just seemed like the right place to open up. For that reason, I think it has been quite busy ever since we opened because we were the first shop of our kind here in the town centre.

Tell us about your business

We HAVE a lot of loyal customers coming here and a lot of repeat business which is obviously a positive for us.

We’ve increased our range – there was a time when we just focused on blinds, but now we also offer curtains and shutters.

We also offer outside awnings and even insect screens now too.

It’s all been part of the business growing; it really has grown a lot.

Other things we offer include repairs. Any issues people have with their blinds or any other items which we specialise in, we will try our very best to repair them.

What is your proudest moment in business?

We DO a lot of work at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital which we’re very proud of. We have also done work at Hope House Children’s Hospice which is another place we’re proud to have done work for.

And on top of that, to see the place expanding has been great. You can see it year on year, especially being an independent business.

Like we said, our loyal customers will always come back to us and tell their friends and family about us, so I think having that sort of reputation is great.

We’ve grown to know people through this job and you build relationships with them over time which is genuinely really nice.

We’ve had it before where customers have moved house and have asked us to fit their curtains or blinds after moving.

When we have new customers as well, it’s really nice to know they’ve decided to come to us.

I think the fact we’ve been in business for more than 30 years, I think that says a lot.

Any strange requests?

I’ve been asked to wash windows before which isn’t really what we do.

But it’s not somewhere we get asked too many awkward things to be honest.