carréducker Bill Bird Interview

video interview Bill Bird by carréducker

• 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