ROBINSON’S SHOES

Footwear

On a chance visit during a trip to Belfast, Nat Bocking found himself in the hands of a man who truly seemed to know what shoes he needed

The puddle I was standing in was soaking into my socks, signalling that the rubber soles of my favourite boots (Clarks Chelsea Beeswax, if you care to know) had reached the end of their life. It transpires that the raised cleats on the edge of the sole are hollow, so if the apparently thickest part of the sole wears out it creates a large and unrepairable hole. I presume that the few micro-grammes of rubber this saves in the mould over millions of pairs adds up and so improves Clarks’ bottom line. Two years’ wear from one pair of boots was a pretty good return on my investment, since I bought them in the Muswell Hill branch of Clarks – which had

“I may be crazy, but this shop is not about the cash register. I could just ring up a sale to you now, but I want to give our customers the fit you can only get with custom-made shoes elsewhere, by sizing each one correctly. Then the customer will keep coming back”

been trading there for 90 years – on the day they closed down, due to rising rents and falling sales.

‘Bootstrapping’ one’s way out of poverty is an interesting analogy. The term originated in the 19th Century to describe an impossible task, for a person cannot lift themselves up by pulling on their own bootstraps. It was also a common bit of wisdom in the past that the working classes were trapped in poverty because they could only buy the affordable but poor quality boots, as opposed to the expensive but hard-wearing ones, so they paid more in the long run.

I was born with a congenital deformity in my hip joints and, despite wearing corrective orthotics all through my growing years to realign my gait, my left heel always wears down more markedly than my right. For this reason I have never had much satisfaction from cheap shoes, nor much happiness in buying expensive ones. I can shred a pair of Converse in a month and Dr Marten’s quality control has slipped terribly over the years, so finding a decent pair of boots that I can trust to fit me comfortably and be affordable but hardwearing and with production that is fashion-proof is still a holy grail.

It was by a long circuitous route that I found myself in Robinson’s Shoemakers in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. My journey of twenty minutes

down the A2 out of Belfast also involved trying on and disappointedly returning several pairs of boots I had ordered online from the likes of Barbour and Loake, after traipsing round shops in the Cathedral Quarter. Just as my dogs were starting to bark, I came across a tiny shop as it was closing: Robinson’s Shoes, Belfast.

Natives in Northern Ireland are natural interrogators. I suppose establishing who someone is and why they are there is natural defence, given the history, so the salesman quickly established that I was working in film; I didn’t have time to come back tomorrow; my budget was more major feature than movie of the week; I wanted comfort and suitability over fashion but I wanted really good mileage out of my investment. The young chap said I’d probably find more of what I wanted in their outlet store in Carrickfergus, as the stock in the Belfast shop wasn’t discounted but all the actors filming in Belfast came in here (this yielded quite interesting business intelligence for me too).

When I reached for the brass door knob on the following Saturday in Carrickfergus, I expected a brass bell to tinkle as I opened it, but I was greeted by a large light and airy room lined with racks of shoes and a solitary leather wing chair. The proprietor was a white-haired gentleman named Robin, who asked if I was in a hurry, as it would probably take him an hour to find me some shoes. As I sank into the leather chair I suspected, with some joy, that I was going to get a very comprehensive education about footwear.

“What size do you normally wear?” Robin asked. “Normally a 43 but it varies according to the maker.”

“Quite,” he agreed. Robin produced a nice pair of brogues. “These are not what you want but they will tell me what shape your feet are.” The fit seemed acceptable but Robin had me walk around the store and then tie the laces. It made a big difference. He pushed a finger down the heel and frowned. He got out another pair in a different make. He pushed his finger down the heel and pressed across the arch, “How does that feel now?” It did feel different to the first pair but I couldn’t say why. “The width is right for you but it’s too long and this last is too high.”

“Look at my shoes,” Robin said. “One foot is a half size smaller than the other, but I wear shoes the same size to show you something: see those

creases across the arch? The shoe that fits has no creases and these shoes are a year old. The shoe that doesn’t fit is all creased here, because it slips as it bends with my foot.” There certainly was a difference, but I still wasn’t sure if this was just some sales flim-flam.

He picked up the two shoe lasts that the makers of each shoe had used, and explained that there were 27 different lasts across the different manufacturers that he sold. After trying on three different shoes to get my size, Robin declared I was a 9H and unfortunately he didn’t have any shoes in the styles I wanted in stock today. Because of Brexit and the pandemic, he’s got several containers coming so he’ll call me as soon as they arrive and I can order from the website. He proudly pointed out that his website return rate is less than one per cent. “I now sell to 114 countries. People in America get our shoes delivered within three days.”

I confessed to my long quest for satisfactory shoes, and Robin’s expression was like a priest offering the benediction of the church to a new convert. His was the Way and the Light. “I may be crazy, but this shop is not about the cash register. I could just ring up a sale to you now, but I want to give our customers the fit you can only get with custom-made shoes elsewhere, by sizing each one correctly. Then the customer will keep coming back.”

After retiring early, Robin got into the shoe business by buying a small shoe-repair shop. This led to his making shoes. He shows me a pair of his own. They’re quite beautiful to behold. I admit to wishing I could have such things but I can’t afford to spend probably £500 on hand-made shoes. “Try six times that,” he corrects me. “That cordovan leather cost me £300 a metre, when you could get it.” This is why Robin thinks there is a niche he can fill.

Robin is also a borough councillor and the chair of the Positive Carrickfergus body. “It's nonpolitical,” he says, a disclaimer one often hears in Northern Ireland, out of necessity. He leads me to the upstairs of the shop, which has been turned into a museum. It’s the first project Positive Carrickfergus has achieved with lottery money. So Carrickfergus is literally bootstrapping its way up.

The shop was once a coal merchants called Kelly and they had ships going all over Ireland and Scotland. In the distance through the windows you can see the cranes of the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast. Each of Kelly’s ships was called the Bally-something and each was bigger than the last. After a long life and numerous owners, the Ballyrush was broken up only in 2003. One of the friends of the museum had been a plater at Harland and Wolff and had an ancestor who worked on the Titanic. He donated his ancestor’s spirit level.

Robin really needs to be discovered by people who want to support retailers who are flying in the face of ‘fast fashion’ and disposable culture. Holding on to the values of service, integrity and offering products that return their investment in quality will keep the customer coming back to his store, even if the price tag is a little bit more. It’ll be worth every penny in the long run. n