I have had a few influences in my writing career but one stands out, and shoes are at the heart of the art. As any one reading my work here, they will know I love taking a well known setting and subverting it, adding more and more surreal yet internally consistent twists to it.
The late, great St Douglas of Adams reached his apogee in the promulgation of the economic theory that is shortly known as the Shoe Event Horizon.
Simply stated, explaining the correlation between the level of economic (and emotional) depression of a society and the number of shoe shops the society has, this states:
as a society sinks into depression, the people of the society need to cheer themselves up by buying themselves gifts, often shoes. It is also linked to the fact that when you are depressed you look down at your shoes and decide they aren’t good enough quality so buy more expensive replacements. As more money is spent on shoes, more shoe shops are built, and the quality of the shoes begins to diminish as the demand for different types of shoes increases. This makes people buy more shoes.
The above turns into a vicious cycle, causing other industries to decline.
Eventually the titular Shoe Event Horizon is reached, where the only type of store economically viable to build is a shoe shop. At this point, society ceases to function, and the economy collapses, sending a world spiralling into ruin. In some cases, the population forsake shoes and evolved into birds.
Genius. But shoes have always been there, front and centre of my existence, setting the pace, showing me the way.
At primary school we had a strict code. Black lace ups in the first two terms and brown sandals in the third. I wore mine out at an expensive rate – I was one of life’s instinctive scuffers – so much so that when a new make appeared claiming that if the shoes wore out in less than six months they would be replaced with a brand new pair, no questions asked, my mother was all over the local supplier like a homing duvet.
Tuff shoes had no idea what circle of hell they had entered. A veritable crucible of experimentation. When, to the incredulity and incipient depression of the store owner, this particular eight year old came back for the fifth time inside six months he offered my mother any pair of shoes in the shop at his expense just for me to go away. The advertised promise was quietly dropped.
My father’s views on shoes were from a very different perspective. Shoes, like hats spoke to a man’s character and class. Not only had they to be clean but also highly polished, a skill he insisted my brother and I had to learn. There were six brushes in the special box we had: two black, two brown and two that seemed just a bit mucky and never had much use (but you had to have them). Each pair comprised one for putting the polish one, and one from polishing it off when it had dried. A rag was then used to buff the toe cap. The highly polished army boot, where the polish is heated with a little water was understandably for young boys, probably a risk too far.
While mum would get the rest of our uniform’s ready, washing and ironing shirts, chipping school lunches off ties and using steamy damp clothes to try and eradicate stubborn and inexplicable stains from shorts and jackets, my father would use Sunday afternoons to cajole us into the act of shoe cleaning. Often he would do his alongside us, a co-conspirator in manliness training.
Later he explained the strict rules of City wear explaining how brown shoes were absolutely not to be seen Monday to Friday and only at weekends, if wearing a sports jacket and cavalry twills. This was as important as wearing the right hat (bowler during the week, trilby at the weekend and never a cap unless attending a sporting event) and furling your umbrella correctly. He was sorely disappointed to find, when I started work in London in 1979 that none of these rules applied anymore.
There was a lot that happened around shoes. Laces broke and had to be replaced by the correct length. The threading pattern was crucial to a gentleman’s sense of place. However, there was nothing throw away about your shoes. If a sole wore out a new one was commissioned to be stitched in place. Latterly rubber heels and soles would be added and Dad had a last, a three footed contraption which he used to affix said rubber accoutrements when needed. If, as I did you walked with a pronation or in-turned toes so that the heel wore unevenly, blakeys might be added providing a satisfying clippety-clip on hard surfaces but, for the unwary, adding a knife like edge when pulling off a reluctant shoe – many is the finger I’ve sliced with a concrete-sharpened blakey.
I had a Geography master at my senior school – also my form teacher in the fifth form – year 11. Mr Meredith was of military bearing with the sort of smudged moustache that might have been the consequence of poor shaving but was surely intended. He stood at the front of the class, hands behind his back, rocking too and fro on the balls of his feet and berating us for not knowing the annual production of soya beans in the Cameroons or the capital of Tristan Del Fuego. I found his footwear utterly fascinating, the toes of his shoes curling upwards at an unfeasibly angle. Each rock back exposed the bottom of his shoes and there always seemed to be something stick there – chewing gun, a label, maybe something written. I may have failed dismally at Geography but I developed the ability of staring at people’s feet into an art form.
This little piece of reminiscence comes courtesy of Irene Waters prompt here; for the record I am a classic baby boomer, born and red in Southern England and wouldn’t have it any other way.
TanGental 
Fascinating. I even felt sad in reading that we do not care for our shoes (nor dress) to this detail anymore.
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Looking at shoes is an action one learns quickly in the business world. “Who is responsible for this screw-up?” is the trigger to study the reflection in one’s toe cap in the hopes a colleague will come clean. Well done, Geoff.
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Yes true. Many’s the corporate disaster or failed merger that could have been avoided if early attention had been paid to incompatible footwear
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😄
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I’m a little obsessed with shoes–not enough to buy myself really nice ones. But I think they’re very interesting. And, you’ll be happy (or maybe not) to know that my boys’ dress code for school requires black lace-ups–all year round. I always think they look like little British boys in their navy walking shorts with black shoes! In a few years they will be mortified!
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Take photographs. The only pay back as a parent is to embarrass the little darlings…
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We had ‘regulation’ shoes at grammar, lace ups, buckles or slip ons in brown or black, but only certain styles from Clarkes. Mum and Dad never skimped on new shoes for us kids though, we always had our feet measured and had the adequate allowance for growing room.
My Dad showed me the correct way to polish and shine my shoes. I took it a step too far and polished the soles, going flying. However, I only did it once, and my shoes lasted until the new term.
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I went to work in one black and one blue shoe once after I changed out of my driving shoes in a hurry (I kept the nice shoes in the car) – I’m sure I’m not the first. Also once I broke a lace at boarding school so I got some string (which had been used to help shut my suitcase), coloured it brown with felt pen and used that – no teachers even glanced at my feet!
Your Geog teacher’s shoes sound fascinating.
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They were a think of devilish fascination
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It’s an interesting obsession! I had to wear orthopedic shoes as a child and so badly wanted to wear pretty shoes. But I have high arches which makes high heels and boots out of the question!
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I got stuck laughing so hard at St Douglas of Adams and didn’t really pay proper attention to the rest – my mind revolving around the population giving up shoes and evolving into birds….. I never read this particular St Doug treatise before, clearly I don’t have the complete works.
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Not having come from a shoe-oriented family, this post is fascinating, Geoff. And it makes me feel like I’ve been missing out! Ha ha. I have one pair of sneakers and I wear them every day until they fall apart and then get new ones that I wear every day until they fall apart. That said, when I worked in business I had a pair of black flats AND a pair of sneakers. 😀
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Very shrewdly done
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My grandmother told me that I should also polish the soles of my shoes like my grandfather did. She wasn’t joking. I didn’t comply
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My Dad always insisted on highly polished shoes. It’s a generation thing they had to look smart.
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I think so. Though he seemed obsessive to my eyes
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Yes mine too, maybe a generational thing 💖
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I remember this same thing being said about the length of women’s dresses. When times were good, the hem was high up, and when times were bad, it was down, down, down.
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Oh the glorious early days of the mini. To be young, male and outdoors
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😂😂😂
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My worst shoe memory is of my father rubbing “bear grease” on my brother’s boots and then heating them in the oven. What on earth? The stuff stank whatever it was. As for me, I had to use saddle soap to keep my saddle shoes white.
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I was as hard on my shoes as a kid as you were. My father, out of necessity, learned a few blacksmithing skills which he hastily passed on to me, and thereafter I managed to creditably re-sole my own shoes. 🙂
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Dad despaired of my hopeless polishing skillset
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What a great post, Geoff. You are so right about shoes, and people.
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Both benefit when not looked down on and are given the occasional polish
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Haha! Well said!
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