The post title sounds quite impressive until you realise I learned it from a song by Rush. Bonus points if you can name that song.
I bought a new pair of Doc Martens the other day.
I buy my docs Jack Reacher style. I walk into the shop, ask for a pair of size 9 1461s, black stitching. I put them on, flash my Blue Light card1 and pay. Then I walk out of the shop leaving my old shoes behind.
But this time, as I was trying them on, the young shop assistant engaged me in conversation.
“Is this your first pair of docs?”
“No. I bought my first pair when I started teaching back in 1988. They cost £30 back then. I remember buying a blue tweed jacket at the same time. I was going to sew leather patches on the elbows… “
The jacket was intended to be ironic, but I never got a chance to say that as the assistant interrupted me:
“So you know how to break them in?”
Doesn’t everyone know how to break in new shoes? I suppose not. Shoes nowadays are lot more comfortable than when I was a kid.
“Well, yes. I’ve bought a new pair every two years since my first ones. They’re ideal if you’re going to be on your feet all day…”
“So you won’t want any cream then?”
I realised at that point she wasn’t interested in what I had to say, she was just trying to make a secondary sale.
And I also realised that I had turned into my father, regaling young women in shops with stories of my childhood.
I did consider continuing with my Doc Marten stories. How they keep coming into fashion, how I once got a free pair. But I stopped. The world has moved on. I realise it’s no longer the done thing for people my age to recount their lives in public.
Now we do it on social media instead.
- A Blue Light card is something that is given to UK public sector workers rather than decent wages. It allows firms to offload old stock or to encourage them into their restaurants when business is slow. ↩︎
Tony Ballantyne 