Family History
By John Rickard
Shoe repairers and clog makers were tradesmen that were in great demand in the early 1900’s and my Grandfather and Great Grandfather played their parts in keeping Coalminers, Mill workers and the public of Wigan well shod. So it was in 1949 that my father, Thomas Rickard, at 15 Years old, decided to follow this tradition and found employment as an apprentice shoe re
pairer with Melling’s in Newtown, Wigan and then with Bert Smith whose shop was on Hallgate in Wigan town centre. It was in 1957, shortly before by elder brother Michael was born, that my father decided to break away from the security of his employer and with the help of my mother, Margaret, ‘T & M Rickard’ was founded. They settled for a shop on Bolton Road, Walkden that came equipped with a bicycle for an early morning ‘door to door’ collection round. “ How my mother coped living, working and eventually raising three children over a cobblers shop, I’ll never know.”
My early memories are of…at eye level, filling my fathers’ workbench with silver nails and of him laughing at me for sticking my forefinger and thumb together with leather glue. But, as the years passed by Michael and I became more of a help than a hindrance and before long our Saturdays were occupied with work. It was in the 1980’s that the business expanded, first of all with our shop based in Farnworth and then with a small shop in Wigan, which took my father back to his roots in Hallgate opposite the old Bert Smiths shop. After a while high overheads at Walkden brought about the decision to move the main business to the Wigan shop, which was extended into the premises we have there today. Its strange how life can sometimes bring you round full circle, but when I saw my son Daniel about the age of seven knocking nails into the side of my workbench at ‘his’ eye level, I just had to laugh…who knows what the future holds?
