At “last”!

A cobbler is putting his feet up and shutting up shop after running the family business for 56 years.

Roy Salmon, 73, worked in his father’s shoe repair shop, C.F Salmon - which first opened in Wickford in 1935 - after school before getting a job at Echoes, in Hockley, when he was 16-years-old.

Roy said: “I used to work in the shop as a boy after school before I got a job at Echoes which didn’t really work out.

“My dad begged me to come and work for him as he needed the help and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

The much-loved shoe-repair shop, named after Roy’s father, Charles Frederick Salmon, relocated to Hockley High Street in 1966, before moving again to where it is now, in Spa Road, in 1976, where it has remained ever since.

Unfortunately, Roy and wife Pat, couldn’t find anyone to take over the shop and say, along with the empty shop next-door, the building will probably get knocked down.

Roy’s popularity appears to not only be down to his highly-skilled cobbling, but his happy-go-lucky, friendly nature.

Customer and Hockley resident, Lisa O’Sullivan, 50, told the Echo: “Roy has been saving our soles for more than 50 years.

“Anyone in the village will tell you how lovely he is. He has a real sparkle about him.

“I have a pair of boots, nearly 20 years old, that he has soled and heeled so many times.

“They’re still my favourite and without him, they would have been sent to the scrapheap a long time ago.

“Roy is probably the last ‘proper’ tradesman in a parade of shops that up until not too long ago boasted a greengrocers, butchers and fishmongers.

“Now it’s nail bars, barbers and takeaways.

“It’s a real changing landscape and upsetting for so many of the older residents. Hockley’s cobbler leaving marks the end of an era.”

Roy added: “My wife says I’m easy-going and that’s why I get on well with the customers.

“People have been asking us to stay a little bit longer.

“Many of my customers have been coming here for their shoes for years. I’ll be sad to see it go but it’s the right time to say goodbye.”

Roy is known for taking on any job, and not just for humans.

Roy explained how a lady had come in to ask him to make some shoes for her pet ferret, as well as a special leather shoe for a horse that had hurt it’s foot.

Pat said: “Roy would never turn anyone away. People come in and remember buying their school plimsolls here as children.

“So many people have been coming in to wish us well and bringing us in cards with some lovely messages in.

“I was even starting to think Roy might change his mind.”

The shop’s last day was yesterday, and dozens of people stopped by to give Roy their best wishes.

to the owners of one of the last family-run businesses in Hockley.