Clog Making Today
The Life of
Clog Making Today
The Life of a Traditional Clog Maker
by Sarah Ade
Over the last century the popularity in Britain of clogs as a choice of footwear has been in decline, and they are now almost solely (no pun intended!) worn as a fashion item or for specific pursuits such as clog dancing.
Up until 60 years ago or so, clogs were a common type of footwear worn by anyone from farmers to school teachers – clog making in Britain was booming and almost everyone owned a pair of clogs. During the war you needed coupons to buy rubber-soled shoes, whereas you could buy whatever clogs you liked, and as they were also more durable and easier to repair than other types of shoes or boots they were extremely popular. Farmers wore clog-boots whose wooden soles kept them out of the mud, road workers wore clog-boots to insulate their feet from the heat of newly laid hot tarmac, in winter school children would collect snow on the bottoms of the clogs and then skate around the playground on these make-shift skates.
On the bottom of the wooden base of clogs a "cacker', like a small metal horse shoe, was nailed on the front and heel as a sole for grip and to stop the wood wearing out. People repaired their clogs at home, replacing cackers or fitting new leather uppers. Then in the 1940's big shoe corporations started up, bringing the cost of shoes right down, so clogs became less affordable to the general public and also less attractive than the fashionable new styles of footwear available.
The change in demand for footwear over the past century has meant that clog making has dropped from a clog maker in every village in some areas of Northern England and Scotland in the early 1900's to only a few in the whole of the UK today. But how feasible an occupation is it? In the small village of Balmaclellan, Dumfries and Galloway, lives one of Britain's few remaining clog makers.
Sarah Ade went to visit Godfrey Smith to find out what life is actually like for a traditional hand clog maker today.
The Clog and Shoe Workshop
As you pull into the courtyard of the Clog and Shoe Workshop, a clog-shaped sign points you towards a doorway at the far corner of the long building. And once through the door, it's like a scene from a children's movie; shelves and shelves of brightly coloured clogs and shoes interspersed with twinkling lights and various tables and walls of museum artifacts!..local antique clogs, books on clog and shoe making, miniature shoe trinkets.
Leading off the showroom is the workshop itself. Here we find Godfrey standing surrounded by various strange machines and walls of shoe parts, tools and implements. He is a tall, thin man in around his mid-fifties, with tousled greying hair and a short beard. Wearing a leather apron, he peers in intense concentration through glasses perched on the end of his nose at a shoe he is working on.
The machines and equipment in the workshop looks like something out of another era – Singer manual sewing machines, hammers of all sizes, riveting machines, various slightly ominous looking machines bolted to benches with handles and blades for cutting soling, shelves of rainbow coloured dyes and walls and walls of lasts for stretching the leather uppers of shoes into the right shapes and sizes.
The clog making process
I ask Godfrey if he would mind running briefly through the process of making a pair of clogs. He chooses to use the slip-on, his best-selling clog, as an example. First get the pattern and draw around it on the flesh side (back) of the hide, making sure to select a portion that is smooth, without flaws and not "fluffy' at the back. Pattern making is something which Godfrey had to deal with initially when creating his styles of footwear, and it is a very precise and time consuming task. Everything has to be worked out to the millimeter, as the smallest variation will show and be felt in the finished article – your feet feel everything – it is a very exact process, making shoes. He is still altering his patterns today, to get the perfect fit.
Right: Racks of new clogs
Next cut out the pieces, an upper and lining for each foot. There is a special curved very sharp knife with a rounded wooden handle that allows you to cut round corners easily. Glue the pieces together, including a toe stiffener at the toe of each foot. Then onto one of the large machines which stands at the side of the small workshop. The skiving machine. This takes the top layer of leather off around the edge of a piece, at whatever depth you set it. Skive the top edges so that it can be folded over without creating too much of a lump. Then paint glue around the skived edge and when it is tacky, make small incisions and fold the edge over, pressing it flat. For this there is a pressing wheel bolted on to the workbench, which squeezes the leather together to ensure it sticks. The uppers are ready.
Finishing
Taking the wooden base, carefully hold the upper in place and staple points around the edge to hold it firm. For this Godfrey has a heavy duty staple gun attached to a small compressor. In the past nails were used, but the invention of the staple gun has made the process much quicker and easier. Staple around the edge until you get to the bend by the ball of the foot. Steam the leather, then insert the last, pushing it hard so it goes right to the toe of the wooden base. For this a converted kettle with a piece of pipe attached to the spout is used. Pull the leather with grips, specially shaped to hold leather without marking or tearing it, over the toe. Hold in place, carefully pressing the leather round evenly so as not to wrinkle it, and staple down. Leave overnight, and then take the lasts out. Nail on toe-tins and staple on plaited strap at the front if you want. And there are your slip-on clogs!
Changes
Over the 30 years he has been working in the trade, Godfrey has seen a considerable change in the demand for clogs. The response of local people when he first started the business was positive. "It was a very strong tradition in the area, and when I first started making traditional clogs a lot of the older generation were very supportive and enthusiastic to see clog making survive. At that stage, I still made quite a lot of traditional clogs for farmers and farm workers, not just in Galloway but in Cumbria, Northumberland and even Yorkshire. But the death of the traditional clog seemed to come with the farm bike!less walking, and you can't really ride a quad in clogs. That's only my theory though! The demand for traditional clogs seemed to disappear at about the same time."
So there have been changes in the demand for footwear. What other changes does he see? "It has always been a bit of a tightrope surviving. Foot and Mouth was a disaster period, and really I am still struggling to get back on my feet after that." But he still continues to make and sell more footwear every year. It used to be only clogs that were made, but now there are twenty-something styles of footwear. Less traditional clogs are sold now, but lots more slip-on clogs: "Galloway's version of the Scandinavian style of clog."
The wooden clog bases Godfrey uses are made of beech and imported from Scandinavia. He used to make his own, but found it much too time consuming and expensive. Also now instead of metal "cackers' on the bottom of the wooden base, there is a thin rubber sole. Modern rubber is extremely hard wearing and probably lasts longer than a lot of cheap steel, and if the sole does wear out after years of wear, it can be replaced.
If he could go back and do it all again, would he? "I don't regret any of it. If I knew all I know now then, I might not have been prepared to put myself through it. But in some ways I think that fight has been good for me really. Good for the soul!"
Clogs and the Internet
If someone new was starting does he think they would succeed? "I don't know the answer to that. The internet has given opportunities to very specialised products to be marketed, so somebody with the technical ability to negotiate that might make it succeed. But the administration of the company seems to get more and more difficult every year. More time has to be spent on paperwork than ever. It's harder to source small amounts of materials and products too. Everything is geared to big companies these days."
Philosophy
When asked about his philosophy of life, and how clog and shoe making fits into it, Godfrey states: "It's my therapy!" Then he continues, with a warm glow of contentment, nestled cosily in the arm-chair by the fire: "I have followed my dreams, somewhere!"
For more information see:
The Clog and Shoe Workshop out.
Balmaclellan,
Castle Douglas,
DG7 3QE,
Scotland
telephone: (+44)(0)1644 420465
footwear@clogandshoe.co.uk out.
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