A pair of enormous clown shoes, worn by a comic as he toured working men’s clubs in the 1940s and 50s, have been restored to their former glory on the BBC1 hit TV show The Repair Shop.
In emotional scenes to be shown on Wednesday's show, 82-year-old Tracy Harvey brings in the battered 100-year-old leather shoes that hold a deep connection to her Uncle Bert, who raised her as his own child.
Bert Baveystock, known on stage as Bert Bavey, worked in a car factory in Acton, London, by day and by night toured the working men’s clubs around the country and entertained at children’s parties dressed as a clown.
He would don his checked jacket, complete with chrome buttons that he made himself, black hat, colourful wig and the massive flapping shoes, then do his own make-up and go all out to make everyone laugh.
Tracy, who lives with husband Frank in Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire, often joined Bert on stage at kids’ parties to sing a song or two when she was around 12 years old.
She says: “He delighted in making people laugh. He just acted stupid, wearing his red nose and big shoes, flapping them about.
“You’d be sitting there and you’d look up and he’d have tissue paper on his eyelids, fluttering them like eyelashes. Just so funny. Everyone thought he was special, which he was.
“He served in the First World War and got shot in the leg, but he always had a fabulous sense of humour. He was entertaining people for as long as I can remember.”
Tracy, who has two sons and two grandchildren, lived just two doors down from her aunt Violet and uncle Bert, growing up in Willesden, London, and the couple raised her like their own.
She says: “Bert’s wife and my mum were sisters. My mum had five children and they couldn’t have any. I ended up living with them all the time. I had fantastic parents, but I ended up with two homes. My Uncle Bert was like my second dad. He did everything with me.
“He worked at the car factory, doing all the chrome finish work. In those days the factories used to have children’s parties for the workers and he used to go round and entertain the kids.
“When I was a child I would get up on stage with him and sing a song, maybe a Vera Lynn song. I did that right up until he gave up.
“Uncle Bert would also entertain at the working men’s clubs, going out at weekends on the train. He would travel for miles. You just did what you did to earn money.
“We were a very musical family. My sisters and cousins all sang, my mum played the drums and the piano and my brother was in a group.”
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When Bert died in 1975, aged 87, Tracy’s aunt got rid of Bert’s clown costume, but Tracy wanted to keep something and grabbed the shoes.
Unfortunately, after Tracy’s son Grant played with them as a child, they ended up flattened, faded and scuffed, with dried out leather, a missing tongue and seams falling apart.
It’s a first for expert cobbler Dean Westmoreland on the show to restore the shoes to preserve the memory of this funny man.
Blown away by the transformation, Tracy says: “They were in such a mess I didn’t think they could be repaired. It’s so lovely to see them come back to life. Everything about them are him.
“He will be looking down on me now and just laughing, like he always was. I’ll never forget him.”
Grant adds: “My Great Uncle Bert was always a very kind, funny man. He brought Mum up as her Dad and I just know how much they mean to her.”
*The Repair Shop, Wednesday BBC1 8pm.
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