A newsagent who has been a pillar of the community for almost 25 years has been recognised for her work in Llanidloes.

Trudy Davies, who runs Woosnam & Davies News, won a regional community champion award.

She was nominated by a local resident for the Reach Regionals/NFRN (National Federation of Retail Newsagents) Community Champion of the month award.

Trudy said: “Wow, what a great year we’ve had! All thanks to the staff and my lovely local customers – or friends as I like to call them.

“The help we get fundraising and our charitable initiatives we do all year, every year, as we want to make a positive difference to the community we live within.

“It’s not about just opening the till and handing money out, as small businesses we haven’t got zillions to give away but our time, our shop, our staff, our efforts, our acts of kindness everyday add up to making hopefully our community a better place to live I hope”

Trudy said she would also like to thank the “lovely” local person who nominated her.

NFRN representative Phil Williamson travelled 70 miles to Llanidloes to tell Trudy in person the good news that she had won the Community Champion award.

“He brought it up in his own time, he lives in Kidderminster so quite a way for him to come, fair play to him.”

Trudy is a well-known figure in the community. a town councillor, and a member of the Ladies’ section of the Llanidloes Royal British Legion.

She said: “I have always been in retail since I was 17 years old. I love retail – meeting, helping, serving and people. I’m a people’s person and I’m interested in meeting people, so this is the ideal career path for me.

“I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”

The next stop is London for the national finals in March to find out whether Woosnam & Davies is named the overall 2018 winner.

NFRN past president Linda Sood said: “We launched these awards during Local Newspaper Week to find our highly trusted business owners who care about where they live and work and who work tirelessly within their community – for their community.”