The shoeblack is another link with old London soon {o be broken, Only a few survivors of this once prosperous trade are left. Forty years ago there were 3,000 "shiners" working on regular pitches; to-day the number has dwindled to barely 100 and positions becoming vacant are not re-filled.
Most of the shoeblacks who remain are old-timers with records of 20 and 30 years on the same pitch. They cherish memories of famous customers and better days, when Londoners were less in a hurry and more fastidious about their shoes.
One man who has plied his trade in Leicester Square for 26 years recalls the day when the Duke of Windsor, then Prince of Wales, and the ex-king of Siam, who had just abdicated, drove up together in a car and patronized his stand, the Duke tipping him two shillings, Tur American ex-President, Mr. Herbert Hoover, who had been staying in Berlin since Monday last, left here for Warsaw on morning of March 10.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.