In response to the closure of T. P. Hughes’s main High Street premises, Garfield Smith writes:

“In the 1960s, the Tenby based stores of T. P. Hughes were enjoying the surge of tourism in summer and the substantial client base of Tenby, Haverfordwest and Carmarthen. The company sold so many things to a wealthy, employed, family-orientated and diverse group of customers. These included a buying public from Tenby homes and hotels to the villages of Pembrokeshire; from the summer fashion-conscious visitors to many employed in military defence! The stores sold clothing and linoleum and furniture and carpets and employed many people.

“T. P. Hughes’s main director, Mr. Sydney Hughes, chatted with people on his regular walks that took him from his Penally home to the golf course or North Beach or Castle Beach where he observed the calmness or ferocity of the tides! He was also a magistrate and passed sentence in the interests of the community, being never fierce nor vindictive. His staff stayed on for years, even if the incomes were lower than in the fashionable department stores of the bigger cities.

“To buy, say, a suit or shirt was quite an experience as you never saw a till! Your money or cheque (cards were very rare until the 1970s) was placed by the member of staff accommodating you into a four-inch pipe which was then sealed and quite mysteriously was sent by a series of pipes akin to a factory plumbing complex up to a cash centre and rapidly returned with the receipt and any change!

“The shops were loaded with stock; the choice was abundant. The Tenby shops, called branches, were dotted around Frog Street and High Street, and familiar faces served you. One chap, a Mr. Brown, suffering from a slight physical impairment, had a walking stick, but his expertise in what he did in the Men’s drapery department was top drawer! Once I had the audacity to question the structure of the yoke on a top branded gentleman’s shirt I considered was good enough for me to wear when representing the Esso Oil Co. and he simply replied ‘We don’t sell rubbish here, boy!’

“The store was perfect for its times - but then vast changes in marketing, especially the sheer volume of goods bought on-line, are bound to dent the personal attention such stores once offered to customers. At the same time and in such an age of leisure we have so many delivery vans that most UK roads are pretty loaded up. Times may change again!”

Don’t forget that T. P. Hughes continues to offer carpets, furniture and furnishings from its branch opposite at 13a Upper Frog Street.