LITTLE SHOP TURNED
CHANCES are, you’ve walked past a shop like Maindy Heating before. The original discount stores, which were open long before the likes of retail giants like B&M and Home Bargains, can usually be recognised by the bins, brushes and odds and ends hanging outside.
These independent high street traders sell anything and everything – from colouring pencils and cleaning prod- ucts to electrical and building or hardware supplies.
Many have had to evolve to survive, stocking their shelves with a dazzling range. But, for a lot of them, business hasn’t always been this way.
The story of Maindy Heating is the story of a small business which has had to adapt to the changing face of heavy industry in the Valleys.
This charming little shop in Treorchy’s High Street started its life as a showroom for coal-fuelled central heating systems.
But as the coal industry declined throughout the 20th century, so did the demand for the parts displayed in the Maindy Heating showroom.
It soon became clear that the shop had to come up with a new strategy and now, around 40 years later, Maindy Heating has become an Aladdin’s cave of items.
They sell everything you can possibly think of – from clocks to umbrellas, wind chimes, pots, pans, Christmas trees, DIY essentials, tools, door stops, steam mops, shopping trolleys, showers, camping gear, padlocks, fly swatters, toilet plungers, electric heaters, shavers and coffee machines, cleaning products, curtain rings, logs, candles, cards and even heated blankets.
The store’s founder, Allan Jones, now 77, explained how it came from nowhere, really.
“We started in 1969, predominantly as a plumbing and central heating company,” said Allan, a qualified heating and plumbing engineer from Ton Pentre.
“At that point, we didn’t really think about having a shop at all.”
In 1970, Allan gained a contract with the coal board to carry out domestic central heating work for miners and colliery employees.
“The coal board started a scheme whereby their employees could borrow money, interest-free, to have central heating installed in their houses. That’s how we became involved in domestic central heating work. We applied to become installers for the coal board.”
After being sent for training in Cheltenham, Allan started installing coalfuelled central heating systems such as Parkray fires and boilers for coal board employees.
“As part of the scheme employees would apply to have central heating installed,” said Allan. “Local installers, like us, would then be sent out to fit it.”
But the coal board wanted somewhere where employees could see the Parkray and fireplace displays.
So they encouraged Allan to open a showroom, and Maindy Heating officially opened its doors.
“The coal board wanted us to think of a good name for the showroom,” Allan said. “At the time we were installing at a house on Maindy Road in Ton Pentre.
“We were trying to think of a name and I said: ‘Well, if you can’t think of anything else, why not just call it Maindy Heating? So we did. It was as simple as that.”
Over the next few years Allan continued to fit and install central heating as well as running the showroom.
But things started to deteriorate dur- ing the miners’ strike of 1974.
Miners took industrial action and the situation led Prime Minister Ted Heath to declare a state of emergency.
Allan said: “During the strike, we were owed a lot of money by the coal board. But everything was on hold.
“Cash flow ceased so we had to do something else apart from just having a showroom. We had to diversify into something else.”
Allan branched out into ironmongery, and started manufacturing and providing iron goods, as well as supplying hardware products and keycutting services.
“We started by selling saucepans and general ironmongery stuff and what we sell now has just developed from that.” he said.
Throughout the next few years Allan was helped and supported by his wife Janice, who took over the role of running the shop and ordering stock and products to fill the shelves.
Janice was a former receptionist at Polikoff’s which, at the time, was one of the biggest institutions in the Rhondda Valley.
The factory, which opened in Ynyswen in 1939, produced clothing and garments for people across the UK and later became known as Burberry.
Similar to the demise of the coal industry, during the 1970s many of the factory girls were offered a redundancy