He was a shoemaker, a master of his craft and I still treasure the pair he made for me nearly 40 years ago. The "workshop", as we called it was in the same busy street as my primary school which I started at the age of four. He would often stop what he was doing and come to collect me at hometime carrying me on his shoulders back to the shop. Once there, I would be put "on the leather" for an afternoon nap . This was a wooden rack stacked with hides that would later be cut into soles for the handmade shoes.
The shop was full of the smell of leather, ammonia, beeswax, hemp, heel-ball and French chalk. These were the heady aromas of the shoemaker's craft that even today trigger involuntary memories of past times - "temps perdus".
It was there that I learned about the uniqueness of the handmade brogues - not only from pair to pair but between left shoe and right. The differences might be miniscule - an extra punch hole in the pattern of one shoe, unconsciously drawing the eye to appreciate the craftsmanship.
In a lesson from my school or the workshop I learned that it is the imperfection in the finished article that makes it beautiful.
In a world of air-brushed glamour, perfection and correctness we may be losing sight of the intrinsic beauty of people and things and this leads me to think of those human "imperfections" that tell our story and let us others sense us as we really are. These "imperfections" might be our errors in speech; a few unwanted kilos; that out-of-place lock of hair.
Or the calloused hand of a master shoemaker.
