Sole survivor stitches dad’s legacy into every shoe

ANNOTTO BAY, St Mary — Step inside Third World Home of Footwork on this town’s main street and you will hear it before you see it: the tap-tap of a hammer on leather, the whirr of a sewing machine, with the faint smell of glue and shoe polish hanging in the air.

Behind the counter is 33-year-old Ria Anderson working on a pair of shoes. Her hands move with the same confidence she saw in her father Lloyd during the more than three decades he manned the store.

When Lloyd opened the doors to Third World Home of Footwork back in 1981, handmade shoes were not a luxury — they were a necessity. He quickly became the one people in Annotto Bay and other areas of the parish called when all hope seemed lost.