Spikes Fan

Lucy's Story (6)
Posted by Lucy on June 7, 2003, 23:55:43

Hi again to all who've kindly replied to my ongoing
story: Firefox, Lampwort, Eric, Erica, Roger, Henry
Johnson, Spikejam, Sinkem, Doug, Sam, Patience, Romu,
Sandra, Tom, Stu, Scuffy, Cheryl, Fred, Spikesfan,
Arno, and all other readers! Well, this instalment is
an interim between my childhood and adulthood: I take
up the story when I was still studying at Miss
Sheridan's Business Academy. I wore my 4 3/8" (110mm)
stiletto heels to the Academy every day without fail,
but I kept an eye on the gently changing fashions. In
the winter of 1960 purple coats came in - every girl
wanted a purple coat and brown stiletto heels. The
winklepicker toes were becoming sliced-off at the very
tip to give a little square toe, and a bar-strap came
in across the top of the instep, which to my eye took
away from the uninterrupted sweep of the leg and foot
down into the low-cut toe of the high-heeled shoe. I
stuck to wearing my classic pointed, unencumbered 4
3/8" courts! Also, the summer of that year was when I
first remember seeing very high cork wedge-heeled
backless shoes for the first time. I don't think we
knew the words 'mules' or 'slides' in those days. At
that time, none of them had platforms, but the highest
were 4" high. Ever the trend-setter, I rushed in to be
the first to be seen in these around the town's
outdoor (and only) swimming pool. However, I found
that I didn't enjoy wearing these as much as my
beloved stilettos, firstly because they weren't quite
as high, and secondly because the base of the cork
heel was about 1.5" wide and I realised how much I
missed the more thrilling and precarious 'wobbly' feel
of 1/4" stilettos. Also more than one of my boyfriends
commented that the stilettos looked infinitely more
alluring, so that settled it! Around that time, the
whole town started talking about a nearby scandal. The
local newsaper had reported that up on the top of Box
Hill, a local beauty spot, a policemen had found a
'suspicious' man sitting in a solitary car in the
Lookout's car park. Daddy read-out the article to
Mummy, reciting that the man was found wearing full
women's clothing, make-up and high heels. The
townsfolk gossipped about this for days afterwards,
and I was curious to note that his high heels seemed
to shock people much more than the clothing or the
make-up. "Disgraceful" and "Ought not to be allowed"
everyone was saying, but I remember feeling very sorry
for the man, thinking he had obviously been enjoying
his clothes and heel-wearing without doing any harm to
anybody, and I hoped he would not be too badly treated
after being discovered.
That autumn, I realised that I needed an additional
pair of very high heels myself. This was because my 4
3/8" stilettos had been inseparable from me, and if I
carried on wearing them every day they would soon be
worn right out. Also, I was no longer the only wearer
of the highest-heels-in-town. Mummy and Dorothy had
both bought the identical make (even though Dorothy
was hopeless in hers!)and quite a number of other
girls in the town were appearing in them, including
three other fellow students at our Academy. Mummy and
Daddy agreed to my request and said that I could
choose another pair of shoes as their Christmas
present to me. My mind had been going back again and
again to the 'London heels' worn by those modelling
students. I told my classmate Velma that in the
Christmas holidays I planned to go back up to London
to try and find a pair of those incredible shoes. She
immediately said that she had been dreaming of doing
exactly the same thing, so when term broke up we went
up on the train for a day's shoe-seeking. No sooner
had we alighted from the train in London than we were
almost put-off buying very high heels. Velma drew my
attention to the girl walking along the platform in
front of us. She was wearing a nice short
red-riding-hood coat, a nice knee-length black skirt
and striking fishnet stockings, but the SHOES! They
were black patent leather winklepicker courts with
stiletto heels over 4" high, but we'd never seen
anyone worse at wearing them. her knees were thrust so
far forward that she was almost bent double, and her
feet were leaning alarmingly outwards on her wildy
tilting stilettos making her look bowlegged. It was a
miracle that she managed to reach the end of the
platform without either heel falling right over
sideways. At that point she was met by what looked
like a kindly uncle and aunt. Uncle started proudly
looking his niece up and down, starting at the top,
and when Velma and I saw him suddenly spot Niece's
very-high-and-hopelessly-tilted-outwards heels, his
smiling face suddenly froze into a mixture of
astonishment and embarrassment and his eyes remained
popping out like organ-stops and rivited to the
extraordinary shoes in shocked fascination. The niece
had a very pretty, sweet face, but all she could do
was to carry on wilting there under his gaze, blushing
furiously in total embarrassment. Velma said 'If
that's the awful humiliation that wearing high
stilettos could bring to us, why don't we forget it
right now?' I said 'Not on your nelly!' and dragged
her firmly onwards. In advance, I had telephoned the
modelling college and asked where their models
obtained their wonderfully high heels. "Regent Shoes
of course, in Wardour Street" they said. A brief
taxi-ride later, I saw Regent Shoes for the first of
many, many times. It was situated directly opposite
the 'T' junction, facing into Gerrard Street (which
has later become London's 'Chinatown'). In the
left-hand window the first thing we saw was a placard
'LONDON'S HIGHEST HEELS!'. This was actually only a
gimmick - an ordinary court shoe with a 2 or 3 foot
long stiletto heel attached. Anyway it served to draw
attention to the shop's
vast display of the most amazing high heels. We
couldn't wait to enter! More soon, Love Lucy.