Our shop at Parrot's Corner was quite large and had living space behind and above the shop. I was nine years old, and I found it all very exciting. From the bedroom window above the shop I could look out and see a huge lake which had formed as a crane with a huge bucket scooped the sand and gravel out. It was loaded onto a conveyor belt, which carried it away to a yard full of huge hoppers for processing. I used to go wandering around it at weekends when there was no one there, I soon found out that the lake- or gravel pit was full of Perch, and on a moonlit night I could see the shoals swimming by, with the moonlight being reflected from their silvery scales. As our business began to flourish I spent more and more time working in the shop, at evenings and weekends, and by the age of eleven I was making shoes myself. Most of our trade was repair work, and I learned to work quickly My Dad was only five feet two, but he could do the work of three men and had very high standards- so I had a good example to follow! The most challenging part of the day for me was the evening, when we worked on the heavy sewing machine, sewing the stout leather soles on.
I remember well that it took two turns of the handle to make one stitch, and there were two hundred stitches in a sole, four hundred in a pair of shoes and we used to sew about twenty four pairs of shoes every evening except Saturday and Sunday! The machine had an electric motor, but no one could make it work. It was heavy and stiff to turn, it needed a certain rhythm to make it work and I was the only one who could do it!
I used to go to school tired, (I can't think why) When I left school I was bottom of the class! But it wasn't all work. One of our customers introduced me to the art of fishing and acted as my sponsor, allowing me to join The Feltham Piscatorial Society. I won the first match I ever fished in.
Now that I was able to go fishing by myself I liked to go to various places and my favorite place was the river Thames, where there were lot's of boats to watch. That was when I decided, it was time to learn new skills! I needed a boat, desperately!
TTi