It is no exaggeration to say that Donaghadee will lose the ‘sole’ of its business and community life with the closure of Dunn’s Footwear on April 29.
It comes on the heel of owner Kate Boyd’s decision to retire after 50 years of fitting, measuring and selling shoes to local residents, caravanners, international visitors and even the occasional world famous film star.
Dunn’s Footwear is the sort of shop where generations of customers have become friends thanks to the warmth of welcome Kate has been extending since she first joined the sales staff as a 17 year-old school leaver in 1976.
Her first job had been at John Beattie’s newsagent and toy shop which was something of an attraction in the town at the time, as it sold merchandise previously only available in Belfast.
Kate was there for 15 months until a falling out with the owner prompted her to explore her options round the corner at Michael Dunn’s shoe shop.
“He said, ‘I need somebody full time, when can you start,’ and I said, “I’d like to have just a couple of days off and then start’. It was the best day of my life to start here,” says Kate.
Mr Dunn had opened the shop in 1969 as an extension of the cobbling business he ran with his father in Donaghadee.
Customers would often buy their shoes at Dunn’s Footwear and later have them repaired at Mr Dunns’ shoe menders. If they were beyond repair they would head back round to the shop for a new pair.
Money was often tight for customers and Kate still has the hand written account ledgers with details of shoe repayments that were made on ‘tick’ [credit].
“People didn’t have the money,” said Kate, “and that tick book was a saviour for those people, especially if they had a big family, and we still have it today.”
Recently a customer dropped in with Kate to tell her how important that credit system had been to her family when she was growing up,
Said Kate: “She told me her mother always said if it hadn’t been for us they wouldn’t have had shoes. Of course that just broke me to bits, but that’s what it was like in those days.
“When it came to Easter the kids got their sandals and when school was starting they came in to get their shoes and their gutties.”
Of course fashions, and customers, have changed over the years and in the early days the shop did a thriving business courtesy of the staff who were brought in to work at the many hotels once dotted around Donaghadee.
“Girls would come up from the south and rent a room, a bit like Airbnb is now, and then work in the hotels. Mr Dunn was clapping his hands because they would come down with their tips and that was another pair of shoes bought. You were selling this huge amount of stock.”
She added that there has also been significant change in men’s and children’s footwear. “When I first came here men wore all leather shoes, there was no such thing as casual wear or things like that.
“Children wore fitted school shoes and often it was Start-Rite and if they have any problems with their feet, they are still the best to get them into.”
Working with Mr Dunn was always a pleasure, said Kate, who described him as a humble and easy going man.
He and his wife Elizabeth ran the shop until their retirement in 1990 and Kate considers herself blessed to have been given the opportunity to buy it from the couple.
However, she recalls Mr Dunn warning her: ‘Don’t do what I did. I was married to the business and don’t you be married to it’.”
Kate added with a rueful smile: “Of course, what am I married to? The business.”
She laughs at the memory of how the responsibility of being a new business owner weighed heavily on her and she never felt it more keenly than when buying in her first stock of new season footwear.
“All of a sudden I thought, oh my gosh, that’s my money.
“Mr Dunn was the sort of man who never said anything to you but I came in and he said, ‘Kate, are you feeling all right, you’re an awful pale colour’?
“I said, ‘Michael I couldn’t sleep last night because I bought those shoes’. He says, ‘You’ve been buying shoes with my money for years and it’s never bothered you, but when it’s your own money…,’” she chuckled.
Over the years Kate spotted a gap in the market for the provision of shoes for older people and she has become something of an expert at measuring feet.
“I measure them with my head,” she said, adding, “I would have a look at their foot and maybe think there’s a big swell so you might be looking at a deeper toe box or they might need two different sizes or velcro tops.
“You’re really taking a good look at the size of the foot and you just work with them.”
Kate provides a highly valued service at a number of care homes in the local area where her customers often need footwear that will help them in their rehabilitation back to walking.
It’s a service that has brought in orders from the mainland and around the world, she said, with people contacting her to fit shoes and slippers for their elderly relatives who are living far away from them.
Kate buys most of her stock in person at shoe fairs rather than from catalogues as she likes to get a feel for the shoe by holding it in her hands.
The filming of Hope Street in Donaghadee has also brought a huge influx of international visitors to the town and many come to Dunn’s Footwear looking for a good quality shoe.
One international celebrity who took everyone but Kate by surprise was Orlando Bloom who popped in to see her range of Doc Martens and vintage trainers back in 2014.
The star had jetted into town to attend the wedding of actress Flora Montgomery at her family’s ancestral home in Greyabbey.
Said Kate: “I didn’t know who he was. To me it was just three guys coming in with a girl and he asked if I did the oxblood Dr Marten’s and I said, ‘My goodness you’re showing your age there’.
“He practically served himself and then my niece came in and I knew from her face he was somebody but I said give him his privacy.”
Even without the occasional appearance of celebrity superstars, life at Dunn’s Footwear is always colourful so it is perhaps surprising that Kate’s decision to retire has been clear and unwavering.
It came quite out of the blue, even to herself, and hit her as she was opening the shop for a few hours on New Year’s Day, just as she has always done.
“I put the key in the door and I thought, ‘I don’t want to go in there today’. And I thought, gosh that’s the first time I’ve felt that in all these years, that I really wanted to go home.
“I said to the girls who work with me, ‘That’s it, I’m done’ and they started to laugh nervously and asked what I meant. I was 66 last year and I’m tired. It’s my time now.”
Kate says she will take up a hobby such as golf or bowling and she intends to continue to champion community life through her voluntary work with Donaghadee Community Development Association.
She and the shop will be sorely missed in the town – two ladies sat down for a chat with Kate as I left and ruefully shook their heads, commenting that they didn’t want to think about the loss of a connection so important to them.
