A letter from a reader

I am 68 and every pair of boots I owned was either sensible or sore. This is the first pair I have ever written a letter about.

Six things these tan wedge boots get right that flat walking boots and good heeled ones never could, from a woman who spotted them behind the soup hatch at the harvest festival lunch.

Pat Holloway · Customer · Leeds · 5 min read

I had better say who is talking first. I am Pat, I am 68, and I live in Leeds with my husband Brian, who is 70, and his spaniel Wilf. I have bought my own shoes for fifty years and more, and I have worn out more pairs than I can count, and not one of them ever made me want to write to anybody. Well. This pair did, and I have the woman on the soup to thank for it.

The boots are the Hannah, from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique I have been buying my things from for a while now. They are low ankle boots in a warm camel tan, with a striped wedge sole, a rounded toe and one zip up the inside. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.

I first saw them at our harvest festival. After the Sunday service the whole church troops into the hall for leek and potato soup and a bread roll, and every year the same woman stands at the hatch with the ladle for the best part of two hours. Most of us are sat down before the second urn goes on. I had always put her down as one of those women with feet of iron, or a pair of trainers hidden under the table. This year I looked. Tan ankle boots with a proper wedge on them, smart enough for church, and she was still stood up straight when the rest of us were stacking chairs and groaning. So while she was drying the ladle, I asked her, plainly. She told me the name, and I wrote it on the back of the hymn sheet. Read on.

The Sunday morning of harvest, with my basket for the church. The boots were going whether Brian noticed or not.

Here is what fifty years of buying boots taught me. Somewhere after sixty, a woman’s boots split into two sorts. There are the sensible ones, flat and chunky, which make you look like you are off up Ilkley Moor when you are only going to the post office. And there are the good ones with a heel, which look lovely in the hall mirror and have you hunting for a chair by the second hour. Nothing in between.

I had got to the age where I chose my boots by how long I would be stood up in them. Smart and comfortable in the same pair was something I had stopped expecting, and I had certainly never expected to see it behind a soup hatch.

That is the shops’ doing, not ours. This is the first pair I have owned that sits in the middle, and having worn them through a wet end of September, the harvest weekend and a fair few trips round Kirkgate Market, I can tell you it comes down to six things.

The morning they came. Out of the bag and on the bed, which my mother would have had something to say about.

1

A bit of height, with the whole sole under you

This is the thing the soup lady understood and I had missed for years. A wedge is not a heel. There is no little pin at the back to balance on. The sole runs solid from the heel right to the toe, higher at the back and with a platform under the front, so you get a bit of lift and your whole foot is stood on something. I stand a little taller in them and I do not feel like I am on stilts. The sole is striped in cream, tan and one thin black line, which makes them look a good deal dearer than they were.

On the mat by the front door, with the leaves Wilf brings in. You can see the stripes on the wedge from here.

★★★★★

I gave up heels years ago and missed the height more than I let on. These give me a bit back and I am not wobbling about.

Margaret B., Wroxham

2

One zip up the inside, and no laces

I will not do laces any more, and I will not do the sort of boot you have to fight your way into on the bottom stair with Brian watching. The Hannah has one zip, on the inside of each boot, from the top down the side. Unzip it, step in, zip it up. There is nothing on the outside but a neat slanted seam, so from the street they look like a smart plain boot, and the zip is a secret between you and your ankles.

On the arm of my chair with a cup of tea going cold. The one zip, on the inside where nobody sees it.

★★★★★

On and off in seconds. No laces, no shoehorn, no sitting on the stairs puffing. I bought them for that alone.

Jean T., Stalham

3

Soft inside, morning to night

The boutique says they have soft cushioning to keep your feet comfortable from morning to night. I am careful with money and suspicious of promises, so I put that to the test properly. I wore them to the harvest service, through the lunch, round the hall helping stack the tables and home again, and then I forgot to take them off until Brian asked if I was going out again. That has not happened with a pair of boots with any height on them in twenty years.

In the church hall after the harvest lunch, with the produce still waiting to go out to the old folks. Still stood up, which was the point.

★★★★★

I wore these all day at my granddaughter’s wedding, church, photos and dancing, and never once went looking for a chair.

Pauline R., Acle

5

Smart for church, right for the market

The boutique calls them versatile, for anything from workdays to weekends, and I would put it more simply. They go with a skirt and thick tights for church, with cream trousers for a lunch, and with jeans for the market on a Saturday. The camel tan goes with every autumn coat I own, the navy, the brown and the old green one Brian says I should have retired.

Kicked off on the bottom stair after the market. I should put them away. I never do, because I am wearing them again in the morning.

★★★★★

I wear them with jeans in the week and with my good skirt on Sundays. They look smart both ways and nobody believes the price.

Sheila W., Wroxham

The Hannah, against what I had been making do with

You can carry on choosing between the sensible pair and the sore pair, like I did for years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.

About the price

The Hannah is £34.95, down from £70.00. Every colour and every size is the same price.

I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that they are in the sale while the first of the autumn stock goes, and once a size sells through, that one is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that my last good pair of heeled boots cost me more than £70.00 and spent most of their life in the bottom of the wardrobe because I could not stand in them. £34.95 for a pair I actually reach for made it an easy yes.

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. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.

If every pair of boots you own is either sensible or sore, this is where I would start. Have a look before your size goes, because the first autumn stock will not wait. And if you are ever at a harvest lunch and the woman with the ladle is still stood up straight at the end of it, have a look at her feet. It might be the soup lady, and these days it might be me.

Pat

THE HANNAH WEDGE ANKLE BOOTS

★★★★☆ 4.2 out of 5 from 300+ reviews

£70.00 £34.95

• Striped wedge sole, a bit of height without a narrow heel
• One zip on the inside, no laces
• Soft cushioning for comfort from morning to night
• Designed to fit different foot shapes, rounded toe
• Smart with a skirt, easy with jeans
• Beige, black, khaki, brown and blue, UK 2 to UK 8.5
• Free UK delivery

See If Your Size Is Still In Stock

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