Service User Stories: Norwich Shoe Factories
Local Knowledge of Norwich Straight from our Clients
Many of our service users in Norwich are over the age of 65. Most of them have been in our fine city for a significant period of their lives. At Nouveau Care we have a great knowledge of the local area, and we love to hear about how Norwich has changed over time. As such, we regularly prompt our service users to tell us their stories of life in Norwich.
Norwich Shoe Factories
When we think of major employers in the area in modern times many people might think of Aviva. What’s less well known is that this would once have been the shoe factories in Norwich.
Norwich was once home to up to 36 shoe factories. It was very common for people of a certain age to have worked in them at some stage in their lives. In fact, one of our clients worked in Norwich shoe factories right up until retirement age.
Most famously the Start Rite brand still has connections to Norwich, although sadly production in the city has long ceased.
One such factory in Norwich was Edwards & Holmes, which once stood on Drayton Road. Our service user who saw out his career in the shoe industry once worked here, but as he has told us he was able “walk out of one shoe factory in the morning and start at another one in the afternoon”. Let’s hope Edwards & Holmes weren’t too inconvenienced by this!
Clickers & Bootbinders
What’s interesting is the references that remain to Norwich shoe factories to this day. If you look on a map today at the old site of Edwards & Holmes, you’ll find roads named after the various trades within the shoe making industry. Bootbinders Road, Clickers Road and Finishers Road in Norwich were all named after the various stages of the making of shoes.
‘Clickers’ was the name given to the people whose job it was to cut out leather uppers. the name was given due to the sound of hand knives clicking against brass bindings. This was once the trade of our service user. What a wonderful term!
