The first Laura Ashley store opened in Llanidloes, Powys in 1961 is set to close in January.

Lord Hooson, an ex-director of the firm said of Laura Ashley herself:

“She’d have been absolutely horrified. She was very much a mother figure in this area. She took not only an interest in the company, she took an enormous interest in everybody employed in it.”

Before the slow and painful slide into obscurity and debt that began in the 90’s I used to regularly drive passed the Carno factory and friends of my mothers thrived off cheap off-cuts from the Newtown factory. This world-wide cottage industry seemed to make sense at so many levels and generated a sense of pride that rippled out across Wales from its rural focus in Mid-Wales.

Now things are very different, any Welsh pride in the company is a whithered shell of its former self - I’m sure that the complete severing of any Welsh connection can only be a matter of time.

But thanks for the good times Mrs Ashley … let’s leave what’s left to the globalised corporate vultures.

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