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I was born in Canada and moved to England as a teenager with my family. Because I have a foot deformity myself, I became interested in how bespoke shoes were made. Whilst still at university, I took a job in the bespoke shoemaking district of London’s West End and for 11 years worked with some of the finest craftsmen in London.

During that time I absorbed from them the intricate, detailed knowledge that could be lost when the old men themselves died. In the process, I became a master last-maker, one of the few now left in this country. Lasts represent the anatomical form of the foot and are totally unique to each client. At Bill Bird Shoes’ Gloucestershire workshop, we hand carve wooden lasts from new air-dried wood in the traditional way.

I set up on my own in the Northwick Business Centre in 1987, specialising in making shoes for people who, because of their fitting or walking difficulties, couldn’t simply walk into a shop and buy shoes off the shelf.

Later on, I studied chiropody and biomechanics to deepen my understanding of these problems with the intention of making clients’ feet feel as good as possible in shoes that look as good as possible. I have been a lecturer in bespoke shoemaking in the Fashion and Footwear Design department of De Montfort University, Leicester since 2007 and have taught at post-graduate level since 2015.

Many people have come to work with me here at Bill Bird Shoes since 1987. Of the many, a few have stayed the course and through their own efforts, by learning on the job as apprentices or completing university degree courses, have become the skilled and dedicated team that I now have working alongside me.

As I begin to slow down in the latter half of my sixties (shoemakers never retire by the way), I feel enormous gratitude that the skills I was given 40 years ago are being taken up and added to by my younger friends and colleagues here in the workshop. It has given me great pleasure to have turned the firm into a collective ownership company, which means my shares will steadily pass onto those who work here and keep up this highly valuable work.