A letter from a reader

At 68, getting my shoes on had become the hardest part of going out

I am 68 and until Thursday nobody had ever asked me about my shoes. Then three different women did, on the coach to the garden centre, one after another, and by the third I heard myself say, I will write it down and send it to you. So this is that. It is not a review. I do not do reviews. It is what I told them, in order, with the bits I forgot put back in.

First, the confession. Bending down to tie a shoe had become a production. A chair, a grunt, a second go at the bow because the first one was rubbish, and by the time I was upright I had half lost the will to go out at all. Nobody warns you about that one. It arrives quietly, one morning at a time.

So I did what a practical woman does. I stopped wearing anything with laces. And that is where the trouble started, because do you know what is left when you take laces away?

Slip-on flats that flap, or shoes you can get on standing up that look like something you are issued at a hospital. Pick one.

I picked slippers with ideas, if I am honest, and I do not blame any woman who did the same, because the shops give you precious little in between.

Then I watched Brenda put hers on without sitting down

Brenda from the next plot down was standing at the allotment gate in a pair of soft beige stitched trainers, and while I watched she toed one off, shook a stone out, and put it back on again, standing, in about two seconds, without touching it with her hands. There was a strap across the side and the laces looked like laces but were plainly not doing any lacing. I asked. She said, elastic, and a strap, and you never bend down.

They are called the Priscilla, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. I am careful with money and I will not pretend otherwise, but the summer sale was on, and I ordered the beige that evening, fully expecting to find the catch.

I have not found the catch.

What happened at the garden centre

I wore them on the coach on Thursday, put on standing up in the hall, which Ken watched without comment.

Three different women asked me about them before we had left the car park. I walked the whole garden centre twice, which I have not done in a while, and Sylvia looked at my feet and said nothing at all. From Sylvia, that is practically a medal.

Here is why they work, as far as I can tell. The laces are elastic with a little toggle, so you pull once and they hold. The strap across the side does the rest. And they are cut like a proper shoe, stitched all the way round where the upper meets the sole, so nobody guesses you did not bend down for them.

Three things worth knowing

One. They go on standing up. Toggle laces and a wide side strap. No bow, no bending, no chair. If your mornings involve any of those, this is the difference between wearing shoes and negotiating with them.

Two. They look like a shoe somebody made. Chunky stitching on every seam and a whip-stitched welt round the sole, like an old walking shoe. Not a plimsoll, not a hospital shoe. People assume you chose them for looks. You are not required to correct them.

Three. Room where you want it, grip where you need it. A roomy rounded toe, a flat flexible sole that bends with you, and a ridged tread for wet paving. Seven colours, sizes 2 to 8 and a half, and the beige goes first.

About the price

I will be plain about this bit, because the price is what made me suspicious.

They are £49.95. They were £100.00.

Half price is usually where I start asking what is wrong with them. I have found nothing wrong with them. It is a small boutique selling direct, no department store taking its slice in the middle, and a summer sale on to shift the season’s stock. That is the whole mystery.

And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. One woman had written, “On and off without bending, and I have had compliments, which has never happened with a comfortable shoe before.” That settled it.

If you were stood at my kitchen table

If you were stood at my kitchen table with a brew and you asked me straight, this is what I would say.

If getting your shoes on has quietly become the hardest part of going out, it is not because you have let yourself go. It is because nobody sold you a shoe you could put on standing up that you would be seen in. This is that shoe, and it costs less than the chair you have been sitting on to tie the others.

The sale is on and the beige goes first. Once the summer stock has gone it is gone until next year. Stop dithering and go and look.

I put my shoes on standing up now. Sylvia was there. She said nothing, which is Sylvia for impressed.

Pat