It's a funny thing that I bacame a shoe maker considering that my dad has malformed feet. He never even owned a pair of shoes until he came to live in Australia in 1957 after a poor childhood on the greek island of Lesbos.
My YaYa (grandmother) who worked much of her life as a tobacco & olive picker used to wear crude sandals made from wood & leather. These sandals were called Chockera (correct english spelling unknown). On my 34th birthday my father gave me a handfull of rusted shoe hammers & tack lifters that my Grandfather (whom I never knew) used for repairing what passed for footwear in their poor community.
And so it came to pass that in the space of one short generation my family found their feet & shoes in Australia & I became a shoe maker. Unlike my Grandad I now have access to italian imported leather & my design options range far beyond a peice of wood & a few nails!
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