A letter from a reader

At 67, I had worn my muddy walking boots to every single outing for six winters, because I no longer trusted my feet on a wet step

The only writing I do most years is the little tags on the grandchildren’s Christmas presents, and even those I do in capitals so Geoff can read them out. I am not a writer, and it has never been my place to tell another woman what she ought to put on her feet.

But three different women asked me about my boots on the half-term lantern walk round Castleton on Saturday, and I have now explained it so many times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

It started a few winters ago, on the step outside the chemist’s in town. It had rained, the step was that dark shiny sort of wet, and I sat down on it rather harder than I meant to, in front of a queue. Nothing broken except my nerve. But from that morning on, every time the weather turned, I reached for my walking boots. To church. To lunch with June. To the theatre in Buxton. To my own grandson’s nativity, where I sat in the front row with mud on the toes.

Maggie, you have worn those to a christening. They have got a bit of Kinder Scout still on them.

That was June, my sister, and she was right. I had not chosen to look like I was setting off for a twelve-mile hike every time I went out for a loaf. I had just stopped trusting anything else.

Nobody decides to spend six winters in walking boots. It happens one wet step at a time, until your sister points at your feet in a church porch and you have nothing to say back.

How it happens

When I was younger I wore proper boots in the winter, with a bit of a heel and a bit of a shape, and I never gave the pavement a second thought.

What changed was not my taste. It was what I was being offered.

Go and look at boots for women our age. On one side, the sensible ones with a sole you can trust, every one of them built like you are about to cross a moor. On the other side, the pretty ones in the window, on smooth slippery soles that would have me holding on to Geoff the whole way down Castleton’s cobbles.

So you do what I did. You choose the sole over the shape, because your feet matter more than your pride. Nobody says anything. That is rather the trouble.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong, and I think a lot of us have.

I thought being careful on my feet meant I had to give up on looking nice from the knee down. I thought that was simply what being 67 in a wet county looked like.

It turns out that was never my age.

It was that nobody had ever put a sole I could trust underneath a boot I would actually want to be seen in. I had been choosing between steady and pretty for so long that I had forgotten there was supposed to be a third option.

A sole that grips on wet stone, a low steady heel, and a boot that looks like it is going somewhere nice. It took me six winters to realise that was all I had been missing.

Then June came for half-term in a pair

June comes to us every October half-term, and this year she got out of the car in a pair of khaki boots with a chunky knit cuff, walked straight across our yard, which is slate and is like ice when it rains, and did not look down once.

I asked her where they were from before she had got her coat off. She said Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now, and that they had a sale on.

They are called the Emma. A soft mid-calf boot, mine in a lovely stone grey, with a chunky knit cuff in a mixed taupe and charcoal that sits up out of the top like a good thick sock. There is a little black corner at the front dotted with tiny studs, a smooth front with no laces to fuss with, and a lace that wraps only round the back and ties off with two tiny beads. I ordered mine that evening.

The sole is anti-slip and grips properly, on a wet flagstone, on the cobbles and on the kitchen floor alike. It is cushioned, so a long afternoon on my feet does not tell on me the way it used to. The fit suits narrow or wide feet, which with my wide left foot I appreciated more than I can say. And there is a zip on the inside, so they are on in a moment, without any tugging at the heel.

That is really all there is to them. They are not complicated. They are just boots that somebody thought about.

What happened on the lantern walk

Every half-term we take the grandchildren up to Castleton for the lantern walk. They carry jam jars with a tea light inside on a loop of string, and at dusk the whole village sets off in a long wobbly line, over the flagstones, across the cobbles and up the old stone steps to the church. It had rained all afternoon. Every surface was shining.

I wore the grey ones for the first time. Three women asked me about them before we had got as far as the church. One of them was Rita, who has led that lantern walk in a high-vis waistcoat for as long as anybody can remember, and who has never once looked at anybody’s feet unless they have fallen over.

She shone her torch straight at my boots and said, Those are never walking boots. I told her they were tonight.

What I noticed more than the asking, though, was that I stopped watching my feet. For years I have done every wet step with my eyes on the ground and a hand out for the nearest railing. On Saturday I spent the whole walk watching the lanterns bobbing ahead of me, which is the point of the thing, and which I realised I had been missing for six winters.

The next morning I wore them to church. June looked down at them in the porch, looked up at me, and said nothing at all, which from June is as good as a round of applause.

Three things I have learned since

One. The zip is on the inside. You cannot see it from the outside at all, so the boot looks smooth and tidy, but it opens right down, and you are in and zipped in a moment. You never have to undo the lace round the back at all, it just stays tied.

Two. Tuck your trousers in. They look best with slim trousers tucked into the knit cuff, so the cuff shows above the boot like a thick sock. It keeps your hems out of the puddles too.

Three. Order your usual size. They come from a UK 2 up to a UK 8.5. I am a 6 and the 6 was right, with room for a proper winter sock.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me suspicious.

The Emma is £33.95. It was £68.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because I have paid more than that for a pair of walking boots that never once made me feel nice.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and they have a sale on at the moment while the first of the autumn stock comes in.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. One woman from Penistone had written, “Bought the purple for the market on a Thursday. The cobbles were wet through and I walked the whole length of it without holding on to anything.”

Then I ordered the black pair as well, for the days when grey is not quite smart enough.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were stood together at the bottom of the church steps with a jam jar each, waiting for the line to move, this is what I would say.

If you have been wearing your walking boots to places walking boots were never meant to go, because somewhere along the way you stopped trusting your feet on a wet step, then it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look.

Not because a pair of boots will change your life. They will not. But there is something in walking down a wet street watching the lights instead of the ground, and I would rather you did not give up on it the way I nearly did.

Two practical things. The sale is on at the moment, and the middle sizes are the ones that go first, which I found out because the 6 in black had gone by the time I went back and I had to wait for it. And the first of the autumn stock is already going, so I would not leave it until the frosts.

My walking boots are back in the shed with the wheelbarrow. Geoff asked if I wanted them for the lantern walk next year. I told him not to be daft.

Maggie