HEREFORD businessman John Doughty has died at St Michael’s Hospice at the age of 67.

He had worked in textiles all his life and his businesses, involving haberdashery, fabrics and crafts and, more recently, quilting were known country wide.

Mr Doughty earned the national title Mr Quilting and specialist materials from his shop in Capuchin Yard in Church Street attracted customers from all over England.

He had been working in his shops only two days before going into hospital at Christmas and his death at St Michael’s Hospice on Monday has shocked his family, friends and business colleagues.

John Edward Heywood Doughty was born in Lytham St Anne’s and followed the family tradition in the textile business, working at John Lewis and Harrods in London.

When his father Cyril sold the family wholesale business they came to Hereford in 1967 to set up shop, dealing in dress and furnishing fabrics in Commercial Street.

John Doughty continued to develop the business, at one time moving to Broad Street but then setting up three shops in Church Street and Capuchin Yard.

One of them, a quilt shop, is among the biggest of its kind in the business and another, which he bought for his wife Ruth to develop into a needlecraft and craft centre, is hugely successful.

For a while he was joined by his brother Stephen and they had shops in Halesowen and Evesham When Stephen went to New Zealand he concentrated on the Hereford business.

Mr Doughty, a Freemason, supported many charitable groups and his shops in Hereford always raised more than £2,000 a year for good causes such as Acorns Children’s Hospice and the Macmillan Renton Appeal.

Mr Doughty, who lived at Burghill all his married life, is survived by Ruth and their children Matthew and Emma.

His funeral took place with a celebration service at Burghill Church on Monday.

The family said donations for St Michael’s Hospice would be welcomed, through Bayley Bros, Hereford.