LAST week we featured a picture of the corner of Commercial Street and Emlyn Street, Newport from 1891.

The picture shows William Evans shoe retailers selling ready-made and made-to-measure footwear.

This was the first shoe shop in South Wales to provide while-you-wait repairs.

The Now and Then was Emlyn Street, Newport, looking from Commercial Street.

There was a large boot and shoe repair shop in Emlyn Street called Tellings. My brother Joe Kiff worked there from when he left Bolt Street School at 14 until after being called in the Royal Navy.

He was horrifically burned to death at 23 when as a gunner on a merchant oil carrier ship was torpedoed by German U-boat submarine at 1.30am on August 9, 1942. Out of 48 only eight survived but with horrific burns.

The particular u-boat sunk 10 merchant ships before being bombed by US Catalina aircraft and sunk with all 52 hands on August 8, 1943. My brother was getting married to his fiancé Olive Pike from Cwmbran, on his very next leave. He had worked at Tellings for six years before being called up in 1939. He had been saving hoping to open his own repair shop after demob.

William Kiff, Cwmbran