The tragedy that befell the Mizen family in 2008 is well known, particularly within our trade.  How the family has responded has been both heartening and humbling.  Anyone who heard both Barry and Margaret speak at the Cutting Edge pre-show dinner at Sandown a few years ago could not help but be left in awe of the raw humanity they showed.  They have turned a tragedy few of us could imagine into a campaign dedicated to doing amazing good within their community.  Details of what the Jimmy Mizen Foundation continue to do are found at their website - forjimmy.org.  When they had finished their talk, we were all left wondering, and doubting whether we would be as strong were we ever in their place.

The Shoe Repair trade has hosted and supported numerous efforts over the years in support of the Foundation, be it through Cutting Edge, the Shoe Repairers Forum or individually.  We chipped in here and there, but it wasn’t until we were reading about Barry and Margaret’s fundraising efforts and other good works that we spotted a way we could help further.  Barry, in one of his interviews, mentioned in passing about his old shoe repair machinery, and how noisy and dirty it was.

We don’t necessarily have the best charity runners, golfers or other fund-raising people at Standard, but what we can do is build shoe repair machinery.  Our Managing Director, Keith Malyon, ever the loyal South Londonite, got in touch with Barry with an offer to supply him with a new, full-set of our latest repair equipment free of charge as our way of helping the Mizens in the best way we could think of.

Some months later we supplied Barry with a complete set of our latest equipment, including the Model 720 Finisher, Air-Flo pressbench, bandscourer, and flash activator, in the hope that we could make his working day just a little easier, leaving him more time for all the great work he is doing in the community.

Barry was kind enough to write the following,

“Dear Keith, Gary and all at Standard

From both of us and the rest of our family could we please offer our heartfelt and sincere thanks for the remarkable generosity you have shown to us.  The machinery will make a huge difference to the business both in terms of a much improved product and increased productivity.

To further enhance the shop I am making further improvements….and I would love to make it a showcase for Standard machinery….

All the very best, Barry”

We would like to wish Barry all the best for the future and hope that we have gone some way to make a small difference to a real hero in our trade.

All at Standard