When did shoes start defining who we are?!

Did caveman and women wander around looking at their neighbours Woolly Mammoth moccasins saying?

‘OOOOO I wonder where she got those from? Bet they cost a packet!’

Or did the Egyptians, whilst waiting for their newest pyramid to go up, look around and comment on their friends’ Papyrus thong sandals? I don’t think so but I might be wrong. It seems that shoes were, in the main, for many centuries, things which protected the feet from the elements and which were of use rather than for ornamentation.

I love shoes. Not posh expensive shoes that one has to keep in a box as they can only be worn on high days and holidays. And definitely not, although I have worn them in the past, totteringly high heels that could entice nosebleeds. Nope! I like boots. All boots. High boots, short boots, long and tied up with laces or short and funky with bright studs to bring a bit of pizzazz!

I like boots that make me happy and I like that people like my boots because that in turn makes them happy! I like making people happy and if it is through the medium of boots then so be it!

I have happy boots, smart boots and boots that make me giggle as I see people’s faces when I wear them. Irregular Choice make a selection of boot shoes which are multi-coloured, multi-layered & multi-faceted with lace and diamanté and silk and velvet and leather. They adorn them with flowers and animals and feathers and bows….they are bonkers and deliciously fun and you need attitude to wear them. But I only discovered these beauties a few years ago. Prior to that I had to create my own version of happy footwear and did with regularity. I took sparkles and stuck them on trainers in the 80’s. I made ankle ‘bracelets’ from sparkly rope and put it on the ankle of my cowboy boots and I even went to far as to cut out bits of a long black leather pair so that you could see my legs on the inside! Jimmy Choo step aside … I missed my vocation!

I also had happy boots made at Glastonbury one year. It was the late 80’s and Glastonbury was small! Well perhaps not small but the bit that I inhabited in my slightly hippy potentially not always quite sober state was small. The Green Field was an enchanting place to be, (as it still was when I last enjoyed Glasto whilst offering Laughter Workshops in 2017) and a man offered to make me my own boots in whatever colours I wanted. These happy boots travelled with me to Bermuda and became something of a signature to the people I worked with in the Robin Hood Pub in the city of Hamilton. In this busy British style pub we served the usual pub grub and on most nights the place was a heaving mass of mainly Ex Pat bodies squeezing together with locals to enjoy beer, banter & butties. The first time this ever-so-English term was presented on a docket to the Canadian chef he questioned what a ‘Butty’ actually consisted of.

“Chips duck! Chips in between two doorstop wedges o’ bread ‘n butter” he was informed by the waitress from Worksop. “Served w’ tommy sauce!”

This butty actually made it to the menu at the Robin Hood or Throbbing Wood as it was affectionately known but I digress. The boots, made in Glastonbury were to be a reflection of my life to come. Adorned with palm trees and the colours indicative of Bermuda, (a place I didn’t even know existed when I had them created) and hand made to my exact size were used as a measure, along with other footwear, as to my temperament of the evening. If I got to work in black 18 hole Doc Martens then it would be a night of caustic comments and heavy banter whilst if I showed up wearing my bright red Converse then I was in playful bouncy mood and could be joked with aplenty. And when Steph turned up in her ‘Happy Boots’ you had better beware as she was obviously in her hugging mood and no man, woman or child was safe!