Shoemaker retires

Press, 29 April 1987, Page 8

Shoemaker retires

Mr Ron Winder has been a clicker, a solecutter, and a floater. He has also been a craftsman, a creator of that most underestimated everyday object, the shoe. Mr Winder has had thousands of soles under his care since he began work as a clicker with the Christchurch shoemaker, Suckling Bros, (now Accent Footwear) 47 years ago. A clicker? A clicker cuts out the shoe — “cuts

up money,” says Mr Winder. Shoes which have passed through Mr > Winder’s hands have been worn on such prestigious feet as those of Field Marshal Lord < Montgomery and the King of Tonga. As for stories about ' people he has worked 1 with through the years, Mr Winder said if he ' started to tell any, he would never stop. i “There have been ' some great characters i

through here.” Mr Winder was well liked at work and has gone throughout the factory, doing whatever was needed. “I have always been a bit of a floater.” Not much has changed at the factory since he began work, aged 13, in 1940, at 15 shillings a week. He will finish work this week and plans to “take it easy from now on.”