Shoes

The other day my father posted a scan of a picture he'd taken in 1977. There's a stocky slightly-older-than-toddler sitting on an outcrop of rock under blue skies. He's wearing red wellies and blue dungarees.

( Shoes )

Obviously that's me sitting there. Red was my favourite colour for years, and I even remember red wellies, though I doubt it's that particular pair. In fact, the only shoes I can remember after that point are the result of frustration with the social structure of schools, and a bizarre cheapskate streak my parents could display at the oddest times despite our relatively comfortable lifestyle.

When such things became part of the landscape, I could forgive my parents following my lead on sporting goods and not giving a shit. Football boots may have gone 'clump clump clump' on that strange not-concrete polished floor of the primary school, a familiar and now comforting rhythm that at the time was the drumroll leading into misery and ritual humiliation, but every day wear? I hated the detailed pattern on broques, thought it fussy. My preferred DM shoes were frowned upon. Trainers became popular.

Now we had a big house, new cars on the drive. I didn't have a regional accent. If my eyes weren't the subject of taunting, being 'posh' was, and the watershed moment was when I decided I would Like Some Trainers, please. Not pumps that allowed a 9" rusty nail to go through the sole and my foot. Not hard, unbending formal shoes that meant I couldn't run. Trainers.

So my parents take me to the local market, and I'm given some Hi-Tech trainers. Grey ones. They're made of so much artificial they could be from the future; light grey and white foam midsole that if the grey were pink, would be like those marshmallow wafers. In fact, they looked like these foam bits might even be edible in the same way that most 1980s jelly foam candies weren't.

I put on the annoyingly stinky and creased (clean, the smell being polyester and recession) school trousers, the white shirt, the irritating and pointless tie (the school colours of Tuxford Comprehensive were never going to open doors, unless they had 'Vacant' visible in a little window near the handle) and walked. Across the road where a few years previously I'd paid no attention and got a flying lesson from a van, up the alleyway where the stock car racer lived, his odd 1930s looking racer joined by a military Jeep, down the path behind the GPO where I'd look at the switches and wires through the window and play with matchbox cars on the clear paved slabs.

Out of the alleyway behind the Newcastle Arms Hotel, where everyone in Tuxford appeared to eat, sleep, fuck and all the other adult shit that made it such a gloriously complex little town, to the Co-op where I'd try and work out what miserable food was more appealing than an Banana Ski yoghurt that day, then down Newcastle Street, past the newsagents, up the hill and through the housing estates to the now demolished Comprehensive.

I didn't draw attention to these trainers. I didn't have to. They were not Puma, or Adidas, or Nike. They fell apart in weeks, not months, those layers of foam separating with almost engineered precision, the visible glue all dirty and muddy. The same people that mocked me for coming from an apparently rich family or talking posh, also mocked me for having cheap, shit footwear. I didn't actually care about the trainers being a brand or not; I thought that 52wks at £3.23/wk for £70 shoes was insanity then, too. I was just very, very tired of having the piss taken out of me at school by that point.

In Scotland, things were yet again different. Never mind posh; I was English, I didn't stand a chance in a Borders Rugby town. By this time, after a flirtation with C&A's brilliant neon Clockwork range of clothes, I went in search of my own shoes. And what the hell, I got Puma trainers. No-one can mock these.

Except they were green, Pueblo. I have no idea what significance this had, I just figured these were a vaguely trendy colour, a recognisable brand, and surely (based on my experience) this would be enough? Oh no. So very wrong. Apparently, and this is the wisdom of the time, "d'ye ken only poofs wear green shoes?".

I did not ken that. In fact, I'm still unconvinced by the green shoe test for sexual preferences. Nevertheless, the die was cast once again and it sat there glaring up at me "+5 mocking for footwear".

In summer, I'd go barefoot everywhere. Holidays? Barefoot. Shoes were not a concern for feet tucked up under in front of Doctor Who, or wading through streams, or driving in July with the poor car's feeble heater trying to overcome the engine and ambient temperature to give a pleasant breeze in the footwells.

At college things were better. Leather jacket, purple docs. No mocking for shoes.

But really, as I slip on outlet-store Nikes in white, with flexible, waffle bases so I can walk without mocking to the Co-op in another crappy little Midlands, I wonder why any of it mattered. I wasn't expressing my own desires, or even those of my parents (who'd undoubtedly have dropped me in brogues like the posh kid I was, aiming to dress me like a public school snob so I'd fit in beautifully in a working class comprehensive. Given my own choices, I'd never have worn shoes of any kind. Bare feet on grass, rocks, concrete, broken glass, dogshit, sand, carpet, the whole way; washed in the same gully under Eldon Road that we dared each other to run through as kids and sometimes found sticklebacks in.

When I broke my leg, the concierge at the hotel commented on how all she could see when I was lying on the stairs were my little blue shoes (£8 from Asda, velcro. Very sexy). I thought I'd thrown them away, but there they were in the bag when I unpacked. But now my leg is healing and I can bear weight properly. And I want to be barefoot.