A letter from a reader

At 68, I worked out my shoes had been making me shorter for years

My opinions on footwear have never troubled the internet before, and I intend for this to be the only time.

But three different women asked me about these shoes at the church jumble sale, and I have now explained it enough times that writing it down once seemed the sensible option.

Some facts. I have been five foot three since 1974. The top shelf of my kitchen has not moved. And yet somewhere in the last ten years, the distance between us grew, and I finally worked out who was responsible.

My shoes. Every comfortable pair I owned was flat as a pancake.

It happens by stealth. You choose comfort, quite rightly, and comfort at our age apparently means flat. Flat trainers, flat loafers, flat everything. Nobody tells you that you have quietly surrendered an inch and a half to the cause.

And it is not really about the shelf. It is about how you carry yourself. There is a smallness that creeps in when everything on your feet is flat and apologetic, and I had stopped noticing mine until it lifted.

The bargain nobody agreed to

Look at the shoe shops. For women our age the offer is simple. You can have height, in heels you can no longer stand a full day in. Or you can have comfort, in flat sponges the colour of wet cement.

Height or comfort. Pick one, and at our age everybody picks comfort, and down we all come.

Nobody asked whether we would like both. The technology is hardly moon landing. It just was not offered to us.

What I had wrong

I thought height meant heels. A separate category of shoe, worn by women with different diaries and younger ankles.

It turns out that is backwards.

A wedge built INSIDE the shoe does the same arithmetic with none of the wobble. The sole is simply thicker at the heel than the toe, the whole foot stays supported, and you stand an inch and a bit taller in what is, to all appearances and purposes, a trainer. There is no teetering because there is nothing to teeter on.

The shoes are called the Philomena

They are from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now.

The shoes are called the Philomena. Navy, with a woven texture on the sides, cream panels around the laces, and a thin line of rose gold running round them, which sounds like a lot and looks, in fact, rather expensive. The wedge hides inside a cream sole, so the height reads as a chunky trainer, not a heel.

Inside they are cushioned, so the pavement arrives gently. The sole bends where your foot bends, they weigh very little, and the tread underneath actually grips, which on a pavement of wet October leaves is worth more than any amount of rose gold. Proper laces, tied once in the morning, snug all day.

That is the whole of it. They are not complicated. They are comfortable shoes that refuse to flatten you.

What happened at the jumble sale

I wore them to the church jumble sale, with my brown trousers.

Three women asked me about them between the book table and the cakes. One of them was Hilda, who has priced bric-a-brac beside me for a decade and comments on nothing.

She asked if I had done something different with my hair. It was not the hair. It was the inch.

What I noticed more than the compliments was the reaching. I spent that afternoon lifting boxes onto trestle tables and taking things down off shelves, and the world was simply nearer than usual. You would be surprised what an inch does to a day.

The next morning I had them on again for the walk to the paper shop, through the leaves, and my footing never crossed my mind.

Three things worth knowing

One. The height costs you nothing. Because the wedge is inside the shoe and the whole foot sits on it, there is no wobble, no ball-of-foot complaint, no teetering. It is a trainer that happens to add an inch, and your body simply accepts it.

Two. They pass as smart. The navy with the cream and the rose gold goes with trousers, jeans and my navy coat, and looks chosen rather than surrendered to. I have had them on with everything but my funeral coat, and they would survive that too.

Three. The tread is an autumn tread. Wet leaves, mossy pavement, the churchyard path. It holds. Combined with laces that keep the shoe snug, I walk quicker in these than in anything else I own.

About the price

I am careful with money and I will not pretend otherwise, so the price was the first thing I checked.

The Philomena is £33.95. It was £68.00.

My assumption was that at that money either the cushioning or the smartness would be a rumour. Comfortable shoes with any style to them usually start at twice that in town.

Neither is a rumour. They are a small boutique selling directly, no department store taking a slice in the middle, and this is the launch price on their first autumn stock.

I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before ordering. Just over three hundred of them at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people, so I read on. One woman had written, “Comfortable all day and the little bit of height makes me feel dressed instead of flattened. The navy goes with everything.” That settled it.

If you were stood at my kitchen table

I would put the kettle on and say this.

If every comfortable shoe you own is flat, you have been paying for your comfort in inches without ever agreeing to the price. You are allowed both. It took me until 68 to find that out, and it cost £33.95 to fix.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and the first autumn stock is already going. Navy, army green or wine red, UK sizes 4 to 8, and once this batch has gone it has gone before the proper boot weather even arrives.

The top shelf and I are back on speaking terms.

Pat