TRIBUTES PAID TO SHOE SHOP OWNER DAVID
DAVID THOMAS, the founder and owner of Jon Ian shoe shop in Cardiff’s Morgan Arcade, has died just six weeks after a cancer diagnosis.
Anyone who has passed through the Victorian arcade will have seen the shop window, decked out with the latest foot fashions and Italian imports, as well as David at his desk at the corner of the double-fronted business.
Opened in 1971, Jon Ian was David’s homecoming project after leaving his family’s farm in Wick, in the Vale of Glamorgan, to work in London during the late-1950s and the swinging sixties.
The shop made it through four recessions, the miners’ strike, threats of demolition – Morgan Arcade became a listed building in the 1970s – and ever-changing fashions, mainly due to determination and customer service.
The father-of-two, and grandfatherof-seven to Charles, Freddie, Lydia, Harry, Alex, William and Ruby, passed away on Tuesday, after being diagnosed with cancer of the liver and lungs just six weeks ago.
Daughter Esther Hitchcock, who will now run both the Cardiff and Cowbridge branches of Jon Ian, said: “As Jon Ian enters it’s 50th year, I am sad not to have him by my side but know he will forever be in the heart of Jon Ian, and most certainly mine.”
David is survived by Esther, as well as her sister Penny, their mother Lorraine and David’s partner, Bethan Thomas.
Esther added the shop would be open, apart from the day of the funeral, as her dad “would hate for us not to be ready for business”.
In an article for our website WalesOnline in 2016, David, who was also great-grandad to Millie, said of his time in London: “It was unbelievable. When you walked up there, there was so much you had to learn. It was a totally different way of life.
“The late ’50s were a difficult time. It was very different from being at home in the Vale but I always noticed in London the Welsh names in the shops,” he laughs.
His career was temporarily halted by his compulsory National Service. He was, he says, lucky to be placed in London with the Welsh Guards.
“It was all happening by then, it was the Swinging Sixties.
“We had things like Biba opening in Kensington, there was a whole feeling of revolution.”
David’s funeral will be held on Friday, August 16, at noon at Cowbridge Holy Cross Church and then on to Coity Crematorium at 1.15pm.
Donations to Marie Curie, whose district nurses Esther would like to thank for the care they provided David, which allowed him to stay at home, as was his wish.