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Lucy's Story (23)
Posted by Lucy on August 27, 2003, 23:18:32

Hi Everyone, and special thanks to Allheel, Sinkem, Heelfan and Stu for their kind messages of appreciation!
This Instalment No. 23 is a very special feature that I am inserting earlier than planned. These actuals event occurred some months later than those which I am currently recounting in my normal episodes. The reason for jumping ahead to them right now is that Cheryl has posted on Jenny's forum that having worn high heels for many years, she has a most unfortunate problem. She has moved to a country house surrounded by muddy fields and lanes and cannot walk outside because her calves/tendons have shortened so much that her feet cannot 'come down' to wear the necessary flat 'country' shoes or rubber boots. Robert, Katie and Sinkem have already taken the trouble to submit some most helpful postings for Cheryl, and I am also taking this very seriously and promised her that I would dedicate this instalment to describing how I overcame my own shortening tendons. So here goes on 27th August 2003, Instalment No. 23:

Just for this instalment only, we jump ahead to March 1964 when flat-sharers Velma, Madeline and I had been living and constantly heel-wearing in London for six or seven months. I had been enjoying all my office hours wearing stiletto heels between 4" and 5" in height, and during evenings and weekends often going into 5" or higher heels with little respite except when asleep. After all this time, the 'liberated' Madeline would not be separated from her beloved 5 1/2" purple courts which she wore EVERYWHERE including to work, around the house, to the Brockley grocers, butchers, ironmongers, fishmongers etc. and even to the somewhat disapproving doctor's! She had even bought a second pair from Regent Shoes in the same 5 1/2" court style, except that they were an eye-catching sky-blue with the addition of dinky little bows on the toes. All seemed to be going brilliantly until Madeline suddenly received a postcard from her tyrannical mother saying she would be coming to London and paying her first visit the flat that coming Saturday Afternoon. "Oh my God!" said Madeline, her face suddenly as white as a sheet, "She'll KILL me if she finds me in these 'Sinful' very high stilettos and I've got rid of all my old frumpy 'sensible' shoes!". Velma said "The only thing to do is for you to shoot out first thing on Saturday morning and buy some stodgy, flat mum-pleasers". After Saturday breakfast, Velma and I went with her to a shop selling "boring" ladies shoes and Madeline deliberately tried-on some awful elastic-sided completely flat horrors (they were suitably DREADFUL!). To her consternation, after Madeline had walked three or four circuits of the shop, her face was betraying pain and she blurted "I ...I.....can't wear these flat shoes any longer - pains are shooting up the backs of my legs!" She admitted that this had been happening when barefoot around the flat unless she went on tip-toe. We were puzzled by this, but Velma said "OK then Maddy, your mother said 2 1/2" is the maximum height for respectable heels. Try some of those instead". Madeline put on a pair of 'granny' lace-up brogues with thick 2 1/2" Louis heels. This time her feet could just about go down to that height, so she bought them with a grimace. Back at home, Madeline's Mother duly turned up - an even more overbearing battlaxe than we had imagined. No wonder Madeline had not dared to wear high stilettos, she scowled like thunder when she saw mine and Velma's and bellowed imperiously that she "Trusted that we would not lead Madeline into bad ways!". During the weekend Madeline's 2 1/2" Granny shoes just about passed muster, although they were deemed to be "On the brink of being unseemly". After Mother had gone, a rather strained, shaken and tearful Madeline gasped "These low shoes - so much leg pain", tore them off and was only happy when back in her five-and-a-half inchers! This whole event made me re-examine my own high-heel-wearing. I had already been finding that it was painful to rub my fingers from the base of my calves down to the backs of my heels. My Achilles tendons had become painful to the touch! And yes, I realised that whenever scampering around the flat in bare feet, I too had been starting to (almost subconciously) find it easier to move around on tip-toe, although unlike Madeline, I could still just about lower my feet flat to the floor. Velma looked on at us both with consternation and exclaimed that she remembered reading in some encyclopedia that women wearing high heels often had problems with their Achilles tendons, but she hadn't thought any more about it because London was FULL of ladies merrily wearing thousands of pairs of simply glorious high heels with no obvious ill effect! "Yes" I said "But for all we know perhaps THEY are all having similar trouble behind the scenes, just like us!". Anyway, we all agreed that perhaps we needed some advice or treatment. A few days later Velma found that one of her secretary friends was already familiar with the problem and recommended a "Marvellous woman" who worked at a health farm (as we used to call them) in Hertfordshire (between London and Oxford). Madeline and I duly booked a weekend stay there from Friday evening to Sunday evening. The regime included a spartan diet, a morning sauna, plunge-pool and all-over massage, swims, exercises and rest periods, and optional consultations with specialists. Upon seeing each of us in turn, the lady specialist immediately recognised our problem and said that she had seen a lot of cases of calf/tendon shortening since the "High-Heeled Londoners" had started coming up in increasing numbers. She warned us that it would take some time to re-stretch the tissues (especially Madeline's), but she wrote-down a series of exercises and guidelines for us that proved to be brilliant! I have long since lost my original bit of paper, but I'll try and reiterate them from memory for Cheryl and everyone. However, in case this instalment gets electronically 'axed' for being over-long, I'll now close this Instalment 23, and post the remedies on Instalment 24.

Love, Lucy