A RETIRED jeweller who had shops in Newport, Cwmbran, Monmouth and Chepstow, and his wife have died of coronavirus within nine days of each other.
Richard Tracey tested positive for Covid-19 roughly two weeks after suffering a fall at his Chichester home.
He died in hospital on Saturday April 18, aged 94.
Mr Tracey's wife, Noreen, developed symptoms a few days after her husband died and was taken to hospital. She died on Monday April 27. aged 98.
"Family members told him not to go to hospital (after the fall) because of the Covid risk," said Mr Tracey's son Neil Vandersay-Tracey.
"He didn’t listen, and we believe this is where he contracted it, but we have no way of knowing."
Mr Vandersay-Tracey said that his father will have an unattended cremation, but a full family memorial service will be held when "we are all allowed to meet and be a family again".
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Mr Tracey first worked for a chain of Midlands-based jewellers, Geoffrey Richard, who had a shop in Newport at the bottom of Stow Hill.
In 1976 he decided to go it alone and opened a shop in Skinner Street under what was then the Passport Office.
The business expanded quickly and Mr Tracey bought and renamed an existing jewellery shop in the High Street Arcade in Newport.
Other branches followed in Gwent, including in Agincourt Square in Monmouth, and in Cwmbran shopping centre.
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