DEACONS is the oldest retail business in Swindon and the second oldest business of any kind.

Only Arkell’s Brewery is older, and when the Swindon Advertiser first appeared in 1854, George Deacon’s firm had already been trading for six years.

“George Deacon advertised his wares in the very first copy of the Swindon Advertiser,” said Richard Deacon.

The firm also turned to the newspaper in a bid to recover stolen goods.

“In 1855 Deacons suffered a robbery. A lot of silver was stolen and George offered a reward of ten whole pounds for information that led to the robbers’ arrest. The silver has never been recovered, but folklore has it that it was abandoned somewhere on Salisbury Plain.”

Deacons has branches in Royal Wootton Bassett, Faringdon and Marlborough as well as its Old Town base, and Richard heads a 50-strong team.

The Wood Street personnel include four jewellers, an engraver, three watchmakers and a clockmaker.

Bespoke items made by Deacons have ranged from a bishop’s ruby ring of office to a bracelet with a delicately-worked ram’s head in precious metal.

There are also repair jobs, some of which are stories in themselves.

“We were asked to refurbish a Rolex watch that had saved somebody’s life in a motorbike accident. In the force of the crash the watch was between the person and the ground, and so it took a lot of the pressure when this person went along the ground at high speed.

“The watch, obviously, was very badly damaged, but we were able to completely refurbish it to its former glory for this young man who had survived.

“We had to repair the case, we had to completely refurbish the movement, we had to do a new glass. We were able to restore the bracelet.

“It meant a lot to that young man because he’d been given the watch by his father for a 21st birthday present.

“Because we deal with things that are personal to people we’re in a very privileged position to be handling those things. You have to always respect that.”

Richard believes that having such skills on tap, along with continuity as a family business, are among the reasons for Deacons’ longevity.

Another is a policy of offering stock which differs from what Richard describes as run-of-the-mill high street items.

“There has been a re-emergence of people wanting proper jewellery that might be different, might be individual or might be a bespoke piece. It might be a piece that somebody wants because it means something very important to them.

“There’s a growth of commissioned work for the very reason that people don’t just want to be having something that’s off the shelf from the general high street traders.

“My late father, Michael, was the fifth generation of the family to run Deacons. My sister, Sarah, and I are the sixth.” Sarah is a director, as is the siblings' mother, Joy.

“It’s very much still family orientated,” Richard added. “In most trades across the board it’s now quite rare because, obviously, things have been amalgamated into bigger and bigger units.

“Everything is still done in-house and this was not only the family’s workplace dating back to George Deacon’s time in 1848, because the family lived and worked at the business.

"It’s only really been in the last three generations, back to my grandfather, that the family has lived off-site. Before that, the family lived above the shop.

“All the Deacons down the line have, I suppose, been custodians of what has become part of Swindon.”

Richard attended junior school in Highworth and then Rendcombe College near Cirencester.

“I took a year out between finishing A-Levels and going on to what was then Hatfield Polytechnic to do business studies. I had a year in the business in 1983. I then discovered that I really enjoyed the business. Although I wasn’t in any way under pressure from my parents to continue what the family had always done, I actually rather enjoyed it.”

Richard’s professional training made him a Fellow of the Gemological Association of Great Britain. Unlike his father, he didn’t train as a clock and watchmaker, as the prevailing wisdom at the time said mechanical timepieces were out and quartz was the future.

“As it’s turned out, quite the opposite to what people thought would happen has happened. Now people want mechanical time more than ever. In fact, they cherish it, so if they want to treat themselves to that special present, they actually want to buy – probably – an automatic mechanical wristwatch as opposed to one run by a battery.

“In many ways the old skills, which we’re very fortunate still to have here, have all come back. One of the by-products of the last seven or eight years of, let’s face it, severe economic turmoil, has been the fact that youngsters who are school leavers are now more inclined to seek out apprenticeships and learn a trade.

“Prior to this last recession it was very difficult to persuade young people that ours was a trade that they wanted to learn, but now we’re finding that more and more young people want to become apprentices, and use their hands and develop those practical skills, rather than perhaps pressing a computer button all day.”

Richard’s sense of history and of the importance of trade extends to Swindon as a whole. He has long been associated with Old Town Traders’ Association, which he currently chairs.

“Old Town is a bit of a village in the greater town of Swindon. People often say Swindon’s got no heart. Well, I would argue that it has, and I have a feeling that it’s here in Old Town.

“Being the oldest part of the town I think it deserves recognition and civic pride and investment.

“I feel that at the moment a lot of people in Swindon are working hard to improve Swindon’s image to the outside world, and I think it’s very important that Old Town has a key role to play in that in terms of giving people confidence to invest in what will be a city of the future.”