Buying shoes

The other day I bought a new pair of joggers. I was the only customer in the 'Athlete's Foot' so had the undivided attention of a lovely young man named Jake. My feet were measured, he watched me walk and I stood on a gadget that showed the pressure spots on my feet. I have tricky feet. I should have been a good swimmer as my feet are so wide they could have actually been flippers, but Jake managed to find suitable footwear. I chose a nice conservative pair of white and pale blue 'New Balance' joggers however I could have chosen a pair that was a lurid pink, green and blue. I wore my new joggers home I liked them so much.

Buying the shoes and having such attentive service reminded me of the days when I was a young child. I always wore my new shoes home then too.

The first pair of shoes I really remember was a pair of patent leather court shoes. I wore them when my mother took me to enrol me at school. I was already five and the headmistress lectured my mother that she was cruel because she was enrolling me late in the year. In Germany children only start school aged 6 and my mother hadn't been told that in Australia it is a year earlier. She was very upset - that headmistress was mean and none of the children liked her (neither did my mother). I sat next to Mutti in a chair and my feet couldn't touch the ground. I squeaked my patent leather shoes together and the headmistress kept sending me dark looks. Mutti didn't say anything, I guess she was too upset about being told off, so I kept squeaking the shoes because I liked the noise.

When I was young it was recognised that having ill fitting shoes was a bad thing so an X-ray machine was developed so that the assistants could see if the bones were being correctly aligned or not. It looked like a tall box. You would step up to the box and put your feet into a slot at the bottom and the shop assistant would look down through the top and see how the shoes fitted. The kids all loved putting their feet in the machine as well as looking at each other's bones. I wonder how many shoe salespeople ended up suffering from radiation exposure. Those machines weren't around terribly long, thank goodness.

Buying school shoes was a regular occurrence. My mother thought you should grow into things so my school shoes were always a size too large and the toes stuffed with cotton wool. By the end of the first day of school there would be blisters at least or at worst bleeding heels. I wasn't allowed to walk around bare footed so I would limp home feeling very sorry for myself. My father would hammer the heels of my shoes to try and soften them and eventually when they really were comfortable my feet would grow and I'd have to go through the whole agony again.

When I was in primary and then high school we had uniform inspections and shiny school shoes were compulsory so I polished my shoes every day when I got home. We also had sandshoes for sport and they had to be a blinding white, so they were painted with a thick white chalky mixture on the afternoon after sports days.

For casual wear my parents and I wore sandals and because we were German we wore them with socks. As soon as I see anyone in sandals and socks I just know they are German, or northern European. This is embarrassing to admit but sandals with socks are actually very comfortable however I wouldn't ever dare wear them together again or my daughters would die of shame.

I can't remember much about 'good' shoes but I do remember wearing rubber thongs (flip flops) and loving them when they were properly worn in and moulded to the shape of my feet. It was upsetting when the strap broke and we'd be off to get a new pair which would pinch and stab the skin between the big toe and it's neighbour.

My first pair of 'high heels' were white, impossibly pointy and with kitten heels which are mini stilettos. I got my first pair of stockings at the same time and felt pretty special. I practised walking in the heels and became fairly competent until I got on an escalator in the city. One heel got stuck in the grooves on the step of the escalator and my foot came out of the shoe as I stepped off whilst the heel of my beautiful shoe was chewed up by the teeth in the grid at the end. It made a dreadful grinding crunching noise. The heel was mashed beyond repair and I was devastated. Luckily there was a plethora of boot repairers in those days of having shoes reheeled and resoled and I was able to have the complete kitten heel replaced. Apparently getting heels stuck in escalators was a common problem and the design of the steps was changed to make them less dangerous.

Before I got married I kept having a nightmare that it was my wedding day, that I was dressed in all my wedding finery including long veil and then realising I had forgotten to buy wedding shoes. I would rush to the shops, veil streaming out as I ran and the shoe shops would close just as I got there (shops always closed at 12 on the dot on Saturdays in those days). I was so neurotic about the shoes that I bought them before I even had my wedding gown.

Over the years I've had lots of lovely shoes. My feet probably are as awful as they are now because I forced them into footwear that was either too high or too tight. In my teens and twenties I wore high cork soled shoes which were all the fashion. People kept breaking their ankles thanks to the teetering height. Also we had long bellbottomed trousers that covered the shoes - no wonder there were so many accidents. I can't believe the height of the shoes that young women are wearing these days. As I wander past the shops with my friends we tut tut sagely knowing that the wearers will be crippling themselves just like we did.

I love nice shoes but am definitely built for comfort and not for speed these days. I had a pair of Italian flatties years ago that were woven red, yellow and navy blue leather and super comfortable. I loved them so much I bought two pairs. Unfortunately both pairs finally wore out. I keep looking but I've never seen anything like them since. Perhaps going on a shoe hunt would be a good reason for going to Italy.