All Ways Walk Cheerfully, by Peter Schweiger

Author: Peter Schweiger. Review by Review by Keith Chatfield.

Life is a patchwork of happenings, some planned for, many disjointed, and countless repetitive. The richer the incidents that make up these happenings, the richer the patchwork, and this book unpacks a fascinating and busy life in a refreshingly honest style – at times planned, at times disjointed, at times repetitive, but all the more enjoyable for that. The reader never knows what is coming next.

Few can lay claim to have measured the future king of Saudi Arabia’s feet for his preferred Italian footwear, or to have owned a loo seat on which Karl Marx had sat, or to have spent years learning to juggle! Peter Schweiger’s life has encompassed these three relatively minor happenings and so much more, in a life in which he decided that every moment mattered – the lows as well as the highs. His philosophy is to try to enjoy every aspect of life and to help others to do the same.

An avid diarist, Peter has kept a meticulous record of events from when he was an expert witness at high-profile trials.

He is the son of Jewish parents who escaped from Nazi Germany, and were greatly helped by two Quaker ladies. They became Quakers themselves and took Peter and his brother to Golders Green Meeting.

Fed up with exams, Peter had no wish to go to university so began working in his father’s shop in London, where shoes were handmade to measure. This was not for him, and he became a forester with the Forestry Commission. But after his father died, Peter found himself back in the shoe shop learning the skills of a master shoemaker. He took over the business when he was twenty-six.

He married in 1975, has two children and two grandchildren. He is a Quaker and in charge of the maintenance of six Meeting houses in the Chiltern Area. Now retired, he does voluntary woodland work for the Chiltern Society. He is a Royal Forestry member and a member of the Chess Valley U3A.

Peter’s book is a kaleidoscope of his life, leading the reader through the intricate skills of making a really top-class pair of shoes to a short history lesson on how the clay beds were laid ready for London – and his shoe shop – to be built on.

His customers have ordered shoes made with crocodile, elephant, stingray, python and salmon skins. An infectious enthusiasm pervades the whole book, which includes thirty-two ways of walking cheerfully.
Peter’s philosophy of life can be summed up in just two words: enjoy it! I certainly enjoyed this book.

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