Pat McKernan's shop in the Cathedral Quarter's North Street Arcade has that nose-wrinkling smell of leather. Upstairs, McKernan sits sewing the welt onto the sole of a boot with thread he makes himself from beeswax and yarn. He is a fifth-generation shoemaker and his family has been fashioning footwear in the area since 1910.
"It is more like a hobby to me now," says the 67-year-old, as he stitches. "I have been doing it since I was 10 years old . . .
There is a six-month waiting list so I get plenty of time to myself." Women, however, wait forever as McKernan has no interest in catering for them.
"Ladies shoes can't fit their eyes . . . If I made shoes to fit women they would say they were too big," he says. He bought the moccasins he is wearing in the US: "They were `buy one get the other pair free' ".
Asked about prominent people he has made shoes for, McKernan says his grandfather once made a pair for the Queen Mother. Have any of the North's politicians ever had their feet measured at McKernans? "Let's just say there have been bodyguards outside the door," he smiles.
Pat McKernan's son, Mark, works downstairs in the shoe menders and will eventually take over the entire business. While both father and son are reluctant to reveal names of famous clients, there is one potential customer Pat hopes to name drop in the future: "I would love to do a pair of Cuban heels for Bono".
