By Carolyn Webb
Eric Hicks does not ''get'' modern shoe stores. Their shelves are half-empty! Customers order a pair to try on and are left alone as the staff vanish into the storeroom.
At Hicks Shoes in Barkly Street, Footscray, all the stock is in the front room, right above each shoe sample. The customer makes a selection and can keep talking to the salesperson, even if they climb one of the antique wooden ladders to fetch high-up boxes.
Eric Hicks (centre) with his children Murray and Julie in the store.Credit: Justin McManus JZM
It has worked well for 64 years but, at the age of 94, Mr Hicks says he ''can't go on forever'' and the store, a Footscray institution, will close next month.
Besides, his children, Murray Hicks and Julie Carland, have the family's Altona store to run and ''they're not in their 30s any more - they must be getting weary of it''.
Mr Hicks is not sure what he will do now. ''I thought I might take up football.''
Hicks Shoes does not have a Facebook page. Mr Hicks does the shop's accounts in paper ledgers. He does not use a computer and uses a calculator only as a last resort.
He is a self-made man. He was born around the corner in Paisley Street, son of a railway worker.
After army service in Western Australia during World War II, he married a Footscray girl, Joan Perry, whose father was a shoe repairman. People always need shoes, thought Mr Hicks, and in 1949 he quit his Forges department store job to buy a Barkly Street shoe shop.
For the first seven years the couple worked seven days a week without a holiday. Mr Hicks would drive to the many shoe factories in inner Melbourne to buy stock, while Mrs Hicks was saleswoman.
Once their children - Ross, Murray and Julie - were old enough they worked in the store too, after school and on weekends.
Murray Hicks and Julie Carland have both tried careers outside the store but returned to the fold.
Shoes were what they knew best, Mrs Carland says. She says her father had a knack for knowing what customers wanted - lace-up boots for the working man, pretty heels for the women and Dunlop sandshoes for sporty types.
He caught on early to the trend for orthotics-friendly, comfortable shoes; now there are versions for all occasions. Mr Hicks says a tram line - now long gone - used to run past the shop from Footscray station to the western end of Barkly Street shops. On Saturdays the trams would be packed with footy supporters heading to the Western Oval.
For five years, including during the 1954 premiership, Mr Hicks supplied the footy boots for Footscray players including Ted Whitten. Twenty-nine years ago, a council extension of French Street meant the Hicks' shop had to be demolished. They moved three doors down but the store layout is the same.
The biggest change Mr Hicks saw was the removal of tariffs that meant manufacturing moved to countries such as China and India. Mr Hicks has stuck to leather shoes for the quality but offers a 20 per cent discount to be cheaper than CBD stores. ''Work hard, give good service and good quality,'' is Mr Hicks' advice. ''And keep your price right.''
Geoff Hope, whose father Ted founded Ted's Cycles in Barkly Street 76 years ago, has bought shoes at Hicks for 56 years.
He said it was ''an institution'' and its personalised service would be missed.