The Italian father-and-son behind the weatherboard repair shop on Brisbane’s south side have been fixing shoes since the ’70s.
“There’s steel plates in there, so we’ve got to take this back bit apart,” he says, ripping the sole further from the stitching.
“Since COVID, I reckon we’ve lost 12 shoe repairers in south-east Queensland between the Gold Coast and Ipswich.”Advertisement “We had a great relationship. I miss him, I miss him to bits. You know, his spirit still lives in this shop.” His story is emblematic of an era of working-class migrants who travelled to Australia and forged livelihoods in regional towns and cities. In those early years, Joe worked as a tree lopper in Greenbank, a cane cutter in North Queensland and a cook hand at the Currumbin Hotel.He met his wife, Ennis, while working at a shoe factory in Brisbane, before they opened their own repair shop on Given Terrace in Paddington in 1956.
“He couldn’t really work, he wasn’t comfortable,” John says. “So I took six months long service leave from my mechanic job at Brisbane City Council.”
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