Sadness as Shrewsbury furniture firm Rushworths is lost to town

And, over the years, it raised tens of thousands of pounds for charity. But all that wasn't enough to save it.

The firm could have outsourced production to China, where it could make furniture at a tenth of the cost. But it chose to stay in Shrewsbury.

It could have run up huge debts and then gone bust. Instead, when the going got really tough, the firm paid off all its bills and then called in the liquidators itself, keeping faith with the town.

Even having top class magicians at the helm, in the shape of Geoff Rushworth and son Paul, couldn't make the double whammy of high VAT and high rents disappear.

"One of the major things in our downfall – and I voted Conservative – was that we thought they were going to kick-start the economy by dropping the VAT. But they put it up," said Paul

"We found there was a huge difference in sales, and I think that started the rot. And then there were high rents. You only have to look at all the empty buildings. People want too much money for the buildings.

"I have had lots of customers ringing me up saying how sorry they are and how much they're going to miss coming to us, really nice phone calls. One said the town won't be the same without Rushworths.

"We really enjoyed doing what we did. We loved doing it and loved helping people. I could never understand stories I heard of people going into shops and staff being rude to customers.

"Our firm was built out of nothing. My mum and dad used to do a magic act on cruise ships. I wanted to set up on my own and my mum and dad wanted to stop travelling around the world, and we set up in business together.

"We didn't have any grants, we had nothing. We started right at the bottom and worked our way up, employing one person, two, three, and getting to 14 in the end, and then went down again because all the imports started to come in.

"But we've had a great time. We have combined the magic with the furniture, and have done charity nights in the shop purely for charity. It's cost us money to put these events on. We supplied all the wine and everything. The main charity was Multiple Sclerosis, because my auntie had that, but we supported any charity you can think of.

"My mum and dad were doing it before I was, and over the years we've raised tens of thousands of pounds.

"Our business was anything to do with furniture. We started off restoring ant-iques, because that's how I got my apprenticeship. Then we starting making the odd piece, and the antiques went to the background. We still restored antiques now and again, but it was mainly making furniture in solid timber. We could match it up with anybody's furniture, antique or modern.

"We were down to four people in the end, three of whom I trained up myself – two polishers, and a cabinet maker. They came to us on apprenticeship schemes.

"We did sell other people's furniture as well. I tried to buy British wherever we could. Lots of firms we have dealt with over the years have gone to the wall in Britain.

"A few years ago there was a really good cabinet maker who said: 'Paul, why don't you move your workshop to China? You could do it at a fraction of the price'.

"People were being encouraged to go to China, but we stayed here. We are Shrewsbury born and bred The business started in Greenfields in 1981 in a very small shop restoring antiques. We moved to Frankwell in 1984, with a shop and workshop combined. We outgrew that, and kept the shop in Frankwell and had a workshop in Abbey Foregate in 1986. We wanted to come under one roof and moved to Harlescott in 1990.

"We went into voluntary liquidation. I have heard of so many companies who run up high bills and then they have gone bust. We didn't want to do that. We didn't want to run up any big bills. We paid everything up and called in the liquidators ourselves. We finished on August 16.

"I will now do what I've always done in my spare time, and pushing more my comedy, magic, and singing impersonations. It will probably be my full time job now.

"Me and my dad (their stage names are Paul Ray and Geoff Ray) both do close up magic at weddings."