Award-winning butcher retires after 50 years in the trade

A local butcher is retiring after more than 50 years in the trade.

Steve Vaughan was just 13 when he became a butcher’s boy in Caergwrle. Now half a century later the well known Penyffordd butcher and his wife Helen are calling it a day.

In those 50 years despite meeting Prince Charles; athlete Linford Christie; BBC broadcaster Sian Lloyd; snooker star Willie Thorne and Corrie’s butcher Fred Elliott (actor John Savident), Steve said it is the customers that have been the highlight of his career.

Among them are Pam and Graham Jones from Llay , who have been regulars at Vaughan’s Butchers, Penyffordd for 14 years, and popped in to wish Steve and Helen all the best for the future.

It’s been a very successful award-winning career, crowned in 2013 when Steve was named Britain’s “Champion of Champions” sausage maker which he explained is the industry’s Oscars.

He’s passed on his skills to current apprentice Tilley Penney who’s already won the titles of Young Sausage Maker and Supreme Sausage Maker.

His former apprentice Matthew Edwards from Wrexham also won virtually every major prize available to young butchers in Britain including Welsh Young Butcher of the Year and the first WorldSkills UK Butchery Champion title.

Now that Steve knows he’s played a part in keeping the industry in safe hands he can retire a happy man to enjoy travelling with Helen and playing more golf.

The shop is also going to carry on thanks to Jamie Baker and Mark Roberts, but will have a new name – Baker and Roberts Craft Butchers