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Dave Gillies at the finishing machine in the Perrins Court shop where he mended the shoes of Hampstead residents |
Sole survivor Dave Gillies, the heart-throb of old Hampstead
In a new book, Dave Gillies, the shoe repairer with the matinée idol looks, recalls memories of his bustling post-war business – and star customers including Paul McCartney and Marlene Dietrich, writes Ruth Gorb
WITH his slicked-back hair and matinée idol good looks, Dave Gillies used to cause quite a stir among the ladies of Hampstead. He mended their shoes, too, looking after their heels and toes from 1946, when he was demobbed from the Navy, until his retirement in 1986. His departure was, as lovers of Hampstead say with monotonous regularity, the end of an era.
But let us thank our lucky stars. The tiny shop in Perrins Court is still a shoe-repairers. Dave, and his hundreds of customers, fought tooth and nail against closure – once under threat of being swallowed up by the Antique Emporium, later that of huge rent increases – and he was able to hand over his thriving business to the Palmar brothers. And there it remains to this day.
Dave and his sometimes curmudgeonly (woe betide anyone who did not pick up their mended shoes in good time) charm were part of the landscape of Hampstead. But, as he would say in his latter years in Perrins Court, it was a Hampstead that was disappearing fast. So here we go into familiar nostalgia territory. But this time it’s different. There are numerous books of history about Hampstead, its architecture, its famous people, its Heath – but what about Hampstead as seen through the eyes of one perceptive, full-time observer?
Now, thanks to Dave’s son, another David Gillies, we have the story of one Hampstead man and his business. Dave didn’t like the idea at first. He lives in Scotland now; he hadn’t liked the changes he’d seen in Hampstead when he was last here, and it was all a long time ago. But he reckoned without the cunning of Gillies Junior. “I gave him some pictures of the old days, and deliberately put in the wrong captions. ‘No, no,’ he would say, ‘That’s not right.’ And he got more and more interested.”
It was a long labour of love. David worked with his father for years, triggering memories, searching out old cuttings and photographs, knocking it all into order, getting it all into book form – something he had never done before. He thought there should be some permanent record of this corner of Hampstead life, and he showed it to Carol Segal, curator at Burgh House – although, he told her, it’s just for the family. “Oh no,” she said. “You’ve got to get this published.”
So here we have The Sole of Hampstead. It is a story not only of one man and the place he worked in, but of his trade. Dave had always wanted to repair shoes. He grew up and went to school in Camden Town, and moved with his mother in 1938 to Lutton Terrace, off Flask Walk. His first job was with the Premier Shoe Company in Camden High Road, before moving on to The Rapid Shoe Company in West End Lane. He was going up in the world: he earned £1 a week, and rode a trade bike around the streets collecting shoes for repair.
Then came the Second World War. Dave served in the Navy, but he couldn’t keep away from boots and shoes. He struck a deal with the Captain of HMS Birmingham: he bought leather and other materials, repaired all the boots of the Royal Marines on his ship, and charged four shillings for soles and one shilling and sixpence for heels.
He went straight into shoe-repairing when he was demobbed, working for one Mr Woolaston who had opened the shop in Perrins Court in 1911, and in 1952 Dave took over the business. The rent, he remembers wryly, was £2.10 shillings a week. By the time he retired it was £100 a week. Small wonder, he says, that small businesses were closing down.
He loved Hampstead as it used to be, he says, when his neighbours in Perrins Court included a general store, a chimney sweep, a sweet shop, a tailor and an ironmonger, as well as the office of the Ham & High. During test matches Dave used to keep his radio on, write the score on a slate and stand it in the window for cricket-keen journalists.
He can remember all the old shops of Hampstead, and marvels now at the choice people had in the 50s and 60s: five greengrocers, four ironmongers, three butchers, three haberdashers, and an extraordinary six shoe repairers: there was plenty of work for them all, especially at a time when men’s shoes had leather soles and women all wore court shoes – the arrival of stilettos, says Dave, was quite a challenge. His work changed dramatically over the years, from the days when leather was delivered to him in the form of half a hide and had to be cut by hand, to the days of automation when he could mend up to 240 pairs of shoes a week, single-handed.
Everyone came to his shop: John le Carré, Michael Foot, John Hurt, Jeremy Irons, Peter Sellers, Melvyn Bragg, Paul McCartney, Peggy Ashcroft, Hugh Gaitskell, Judi Dench, Peter O’Toole – everyone from Lulu to Marlene Dietrich.
Dave is in his 80s now. He took his tools when he retired, set up a work bench in his garage, and mended his own shoes until five years ago. He leads a quiet life in Scotland. Does he ever miss being at the centre of things in Hampstead? Not the way it is now, he says, then adds a little wistfully: “I had a good time there.”
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