RENOWNED family business Ena Shaw is celebrating being listed among the London Stock Exchange’s 1,000 companies to Inspire Britain.

The company has been trading since 1932, when Ena started her own workroom making curtains and loose covers for retail.

The business established its manufacturing division in 1982 and still has a store on Duke Street.

The Star reported in 2012 when Ena Shaw secured a lucrative contract to make the curtains for thousands of rooms in the athletes’ village at the London Olympics.

Richard Potter, the third generation of his family to be at the business' helm, has welcomed the latest good news and says the company has had to make significant changes to thrive in what he called difficult times for the industry.

"It is just great for the profile of the company and hopefully recognises some of what we've been doing for the past few years," he said.

"It is mainly down to turnover growth per se and also relative to the rest of our industry."

Richard added: "Textiles in the UK is quite a difficult market to be in and we have made quite a lot of changes to achieve that and a lot is down to setting up new subsidiaries and concessions for retailers. That has provided a lot of growth and provided additional manufacturing in St Helens.

"We've made a number of changes when the recession started. we now have quite a significant contract business supplying commercial organisations and we've done lots to commercial properties, care homes, hotels, social housing and that's grown quite a lot over the years.

"We have managed to maintain our traditional roots but at the same time we've grown other areas."

And he says the company's St Helens roots is still an integral part of its identity.

"We've always been in St Helens and had a shop here and we have very much remained part of it and there's a definite commitment to manufacture here," added Richard, 48.

"That's part of the ethos of a family business, it's not all about profit. It's also about ties to the area, there's definitely a commitment to carrying on manufacturing here.

"There's been a lot of stories about manufacturers moving offshore which has absolutely happened but we are determined to remain and it's encouraging that we can grow the business in difficult times."