Spikes Fan

Lucy's Story (3)
Posted by Lucy on May 24, 2003, 1:15:00

Hi Sinkem, Erica, Scuffy, Cheryl, Stu, Patience, Fred,
Spikesfan!, and thanks to Firefox for conserving my
little offerings on the Mega Forum -All extremely
flattering - thank you everyone! To continue: I should
have mentioned that the very first stilettos to
explode into the shoeshops in the 50s were Italian (I
think) and most had the bottom half of the heel in
naked shiny steel to deliberately liken them to
STILETTOS (thin daggers), the name which has stuck
ever since. Unlike today, there was very little
variation in styles, but then there didn't need to be
because they were CLASSIC and FANTASTIC. They were all
plain courts (pumps) with no frills, straps or other
nonsense, with low-cut uppers covering only our toes.
I still think nothing has EVER beaten those classic
50s stilettos for sheer class. I was indescribably
thrilled to have MY OWN 4" STILETTOS when still only
thirteen. To avoid further humiliation in public, I
restricted my first walks to short errands to shops
and back,trying to keep both heels upright and
strengthening my necessary ankle and leg muscles.
Although not wanting make my beloved shoes rickety, in
odd standing-still moments I could not resist some
deliberate side-to-side rocking (as now advised in
Jenny's 'wearing' section)when no-one was looking in
order to sense the sheer height and femininity of 1/4"
thin stilettos. It might seem silly to adults, but it
was unbelievable thrilling to a girl just entering her
teens. Over the years, I have seen a number of women
sneakily enjoying wobbling their heels like that,
particularly when in stationary queues. In the 1950s,
stilettos abounded in their THOUSANDS. Just about
every teenager and every mother wore them, always
fully visible with skirts and stockings (no jeans!).
Hardly anyone yet had a television, so on saturday
nights many hundreds of people flocked to the cinemas
and dances, and there were HOARDS of stilettos heels
click-clicking throughout the town. Whole armies of
us! A constant problem was getting our heels stuck
between paving stones, but councils soon responded by
filling all the narrow cracks with cement. The second
problem was caused by all our stilettos having
ultra-pointed 'winkle-picker' toes. Firstly, the
extreme slope of the shoe cause our toes to become
rammed agonisingly forward towards the point, and
secondly, the empty point itself tended to curl
upwards in an ugly way. We all eased these problems by
pushing a wad of cotton wool into the empty point.
Also, in those pioneering days, some manufacturers did
not yet put a strong metal shank into the arched sole.
I saw a lot of girls walking on mis-shapen shoes where
the stiletto heels had become angled right forwards
towards the toe-box. For some reason, our group of
girls called these "Quaking" shoes. This distortion
would pull the heel of the shoe backwards, allowing
the foot to slop out of it at every step. On saturday
nights, it became quite fun to hold a "Spot the
quakers" competition amongst ourselves. These days,
high heels seem to be made with much more strength and
professionalism. As our confidence grew (and when
parents weren't looking),we started wearing our high
stilettos to school. One morning when about five of us
came clicking towards the school, the most enormous
cheer went up from all the boys. We felt like a
million dollars and grinned away like mad! In class, I
think the male teachers were secretly turned on by our
heels, but several female teachers were snidey. Our
English mistress (who still wore old-fashioned thick
40s heels called our heels 'Silly skimpy efforts' and
our attractive young French mistress who WAS trendy
and with-it in very high stilettos looked vaguely
miffed that us youngsters were giving her serious
competition. However, these heel incursions only
lasted a few months because one morning the
headmistress asked all the girls to stay behind after
assembly and told us that heels over 1" were banned
forthwith. We were devastated, except for a few class
frumps who never wore heels and who adopted smug
smiles. However, we wore our heels all the more out of
school, and within school more and more sexy flatties
began appearing. Elasticated closed-in horrors(now
called 'loafers')were dropped in favour of black
leather courts with slightly sculpted-in 1" heels and
very low-cut toes. It quickly became the "in" thing to
go for loose sizes that we could flip-flop and clatter
along the corridors in what we thought was a
provocative, rebellious manner. However, again the
headmistress called us all together. We were ranked
into long lines and had to pass a test where we took
turns to stand on tip-toes, and any shoes that failed
to stay gripping our heels were banned from school.
Thus those of us with loose flatties had to report
back soon afterwards wearing snug-fitting versions.
But again the headmistress was thwarted: as we girls
walked along the corridors, it suddenly became a
hilarious craze amongst the packs of boys to spring
towards us from behind and stand on the backs of our
flatties, resulting in a sudden heap of empty left or
right shoes littering the floor and a load of
one-shoed girls hopping about. 'Sprogging'they called
it. It spread like wildfire to every class in the
school until at every breaktime all corridors
resounded with the yelps of triumphant boys and the
plaintiff protest of us girls. Our shoes suffered this
constant sprogging countless times each day, until our
heel-backs all became trampled down so much that even
those new well-fitting shoes were all flopping away
merrily with the headmistress seemingly powerless to
do anything more about it. At going-home-time, the
townsfolk saw over three hundred schoolgirls emerging
and running for buses and trains with their sexy
flatties flapping and flying about in all directions.
Then the ultimate damper happened. Not to be beaten,
the headmistress issued us girls with a typed edict
that only "Nurse, one-button shoes" (now called
'Mary-Janes' on the web) would be permitted
thereafter. Their secure instep straps finally put
paid to all sprogging and flip-flopping. So boring!
The only remaining interest after that was the French
mistress's forays into ever higher heels and backless
styles. Sorry heel-lovers, I've veered away from heels
for a bit,but I'd love to continue recounting my high
stiletto adventures if you aren't too bored by now.
Love to all, Lucy.