Be in quick for free shoe shine
Melissa Wishart talks to Mitchell Davis at the Beeseal wax stall which is offering Fieldays visitors free shoe shines.
“Free shoe shine!” booms 18-year-old Mitchell Davis as he sits around the Beeseal stall with a group of other workers at Fieldays.
“I work from seven to five,” he says. He will be here all four days, shining shoes for any keen
passersby, and selling a few tins of Beeseal wax if he can manage it.
He shines shoes for at least a hundred people a day, he says, but the day has just started. “I’ve had
four so far.”
This is his third year working for his uncle, Tony Morris, the operator of the family business.
Beeseal is used for a variety of things, according to Morris. Not only is it for shoes, but it nearly any
other leather product, including saddles, car dashboards, and bumper bars.
Morris says “It’ll help waterproof, protect them from the elements, stop them drying out and
cracking, and restore colour.”
Morris says they have had reports from people saying it has helped out dried out and cracked hands.
“It has natural healing properties,” he says.
The business, started around 22 years ago, is run out of Whangamata.
Morris says it is good for them to come to Fieldays.
“You get that concentration of people,” he says, “It’s a good show.”
He says Beeseal is more of a hobby business, and they’re keeping it “fairly small.”
Tins are $30 for 220g or $18 for 100g. They are also running a ‘buy two big tins, get a small tin free’
deal.
