Emyr Webster - Decomate

Emyr has lived in Treorchy all of his life. In 1988, Emyr moved with his family to 63-64 Bute Street, to live above the business that his mother and father, Gaynor and Robert, would build over the next fifteen years. When completing a census which asked, ‘how far do you travel to work?’ the answer submitted by his father highlighted the proximity of work and family life for the Websters – ‘three foot six’ to be exact. It was this move into retail which led Emyr to become the Secretary of the Treorchy District Chamber of Trade in the late 1990s, while the business – one of the longest established shops on the high street – was taken over by Mark and June George who successfully manage Decomate today.

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Transcript

“My father worked in Bramber’s. It was a steel spring factory in Llwynypia, and that closed down, so there was lots of redundancies. And basically he was looking for a job. So, my parents decided, well, why not buy a shop? And we weren’t quite sure if that was a good idea... but they did. They bought a paint shop, Decomate in Treorchy, and they ran it for 15 years... they'd never worked in retail... But, yeah, he thoroughly enjoyed it. It kept him occupied.”