A businessman who ran a Bicester furniture store for almost six decades has died.

Howard Cherry, passed away aged 86 on June 4 after a short illness, six months after he closed the family shop Cherry’s.

He started his working life in the building trade, learning skills including carpentry.

But he decided his future was with the family business, Handy Stores, in Sheep Street, which his parents William and Grace Cherry started in 1927.

In 1953 Mr Cherry set up Cherry’s, also in Sheep Street, as another arm to the family empire.

He met his future wife Jean Ward at a dance in Banbury. They married in 1948 and had three children, Paul, who died in 1999, Richard and Philippa.

The family lived above the shop until the mid-1960s before moving to Stoke Lyne, where Mr Cherry had lived ever since.

Paul joined the business in the 1970s after several years’ working in the furniture department at Ellison & Cavell, now Debenhams, in Oxford.

After Mrs Cherry died in 1981, aged 56, his daughter Philippa McDonald also joined the team. The trio ran a successful business, which saw customers return time after time.

Mrs McDonald described Mr Cherry as an “excellent father”, who was passionate about the family business.

She said: “He wasn’t the hard-sell type at all – he was always concerned people bought what they wanted.

“He liked his customers, they were his friends. He really loved to chat to people. The shop was his life.”

Richard, a former model-maker at Pressed Steel in Oxford, who worked at Handy Stores until it closed and later at Cherry’s, said: “He was the most straightforward honest man. Things had to be right – he was a perfectionist.

“He was a very unassuming man, but very bright. He got a scholarship a year early, aged nine, to the County School in Bicester.”

Mr Cherry was a founder member of Bicester Round Table and a regular at the 41-Club for many years.

His hobbies included music, gliding and flying. He held a private pilot’s licence.

As a young man he played drums and could also play the piano, trombone and accordion proficiently.

He made model aircraft and even a canoe for his children, which he worked on at the shop in between customers.

Mr Cherry, whose second wife Bobbie died in 2009, also leaves two grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

His funeral was held at Peter’s Church, Stoke Lyne, on Monday.