Alfred Caruana, Rabat (Malta)’s last shoemaker, passed away yesterday at the age of 71 after almost 50 years working in the shoe repair business.

Popularly known as Freddie, the shoemaker had been repairing shoes out of his hole-in-the-wall workshop for nearly half a decade. In a 2016 interview, he had revealed that despite his face being synonymous with the shop, he was not its original owner: “I don’t know exactly how old this place is, but the first owner I know about passed away 100 years ago, and it originally belonged to his father before him. If I had to guess, I would say that it is around 300 years old. My father had it before me, and he once made a pair of sandals for the Queen,” Alfred said.

At one point, the workshop doubled as a shoe shop but in the last few years he had stuck to repairs. In the same interview, Freddie had been reported as saying: “I’m 69 years old and a pensioner, but I enjoy spending time here, listening to ghana (Maltese folk music) while I work,” he had recounted.

When asked about the future of his shop, Alfred had answered sombrely: “when I’m gone, the shop will close. I have no children and my sibling’s children aren’t interested. Repairing shoes isn’t for everyone after all,” he said.

Alfred had famously hung up his working boots on 28^th September, 2019, with a hand-written sign outside his workshop announcing the sad news: “ Saturday 28^th September is the last day of operation for this shop thank you for everything.”

RIP Alfred!