England, United Kingdom-based bespoke orthopedic shoemaker and teacher
The Traverse Trust funded filming of a series of videos of Bill teaching shoemaking for the Pattenmaker’s Livery charitable organization, where he later taught courses for a certificate in bespoke orthopedic shoemaking
Interview
https://vimeo.com/633027252/81dde909c0
- workshop in a Nissen hut since 1988
- studied architecture at school
- lived in a squat with a John Lobb shoemaker
- interviewed with Eric Lobb
- apprenticed at Lobb
- has a foot deformity, had trouble finding shoes
- wanted to make shoes that fit himself
- made trees for lots of famous people
- wanted to make shoes for ordinary people with walking trouble
- worked with Tom Steinhoven, treemaker and lastmaker
- was in his 60s
- was apprenticed at 14
- would sit with other makers
- Raymond "Cookie" Cooke
- Tommy Simons (in 70s)
- Ralph Harrison (worked until 86)
- started with lastmaking, treemaking
- SOHO: made lasts for people off the street
- subsidiary of Lobb's
- Greek and Cypriot shoemakers
- what Steve had learned in the 1920s
- how to carve riding boot trees on the bandsaw
- translated that to lastmaking on the bandsaw for any shape foot
- Jimmy Kowalchik (sp?)
- great west end closer
- David Savier [sp?]
- closing
- patternmaker
- moved up as Bohemians to be part of a community
- good rail link into Paddington, could still work at Peen's a few days a week, set up there
- Lobb's found out he was setting up on his own, they didn't like it
- parted ways, forced him to go full time
- Freeman Tonkin relationship
- could fit 90-95% of walk-ins
- about 5% couldn't fit would pass to him
- used Jimmy to make uppers until mid 1990s
- got a post machine, started closing his own
- Caroline Groves worked for him closing in the hut, the moved out
- quickly had more work than one person could do
- Croggins, not Bakers then
- Ken Nichols worked for him in 1992
- eventually all the work made there
- from about 2004-5, everything made there
- orthopedic side: always a communication problem
- much easier in-house
- people want the interaction all the way through, even if it's more expensive
- "the client-patient is very engaged all the way through"
- Eric Lobb: you can't do both
- "threw me in the deep end"
- three kids and a mortgage
- Hell for four years, 60-hour weeks, all-nighters
- worst customer: American woman, very posh, wanted him to make the shoes, do the closing
- hardest: can't put your finger on the problem
- computer gait analysis
- joint range of motion analysis
- Training
- John Fox support with apprenticeship
- George, apprentice
- 121k people making shoes in the UK in the middle 1960s
- almost as many as coal miners
- 1990s: 20-25k people
- want orthopedic: start by learning to make shoes
- work on an assembly line, get humility, esp. about pay
- just out of A levels is hard
- result: lots of shoe designers that don't understand physiology
- orthopedic should be taught to people who know how to make shoes
- focus: course to teach orthopedics to four people who know shoes
- use shoemaking to help people walk again
- Future
- got a teaching qualification in further education
- taught for 11 years
- challenge: turning bespoke orthopedic into a distinct discipline
- between orthopedic surgeon and orthotist and podiatrist
- say with authority what can and cannot do
- Succession
- comes from family of woolen people, back to the 1600s
- father had to go into the wool trade
- wanted to be a scientist
- none of children gone into the trade
- "soul children" who have the same spirit
- "birth children" also doing what they want
- make the company a collective, have people own shares, only people who work there can have shares
- new modern model: freeing up children to do what's right for them
- bring in people motivated for shoes
- Franciscan meditation
- lots of t'ai chi since 1991