Consuming Interest

Upon My Sole

By LESLIE ADRIAN

I WONDER if anyone runs evening classes in shoe re- pairing? If so, I may en- rol. Not for any reasons connected with William Morris or occupational therapy, but because I am fed up with profes- sional shoe-menders.

Last year in our small household, while we were despairingly shopping around from one local shoe-mender to another (interspersed with occa- sional forays with West End repairers), we sus- tained the following casualties. Husband's shoes were so tight after being soled that they were unwearable. Wife's tan walking shoes came back with the soles and stacked heels painted a dull chocolate. A pair of blond kid court shoes were indelibly marked with black streaks after rubbing heels with a pair of schoolboy's clodhoppers in the collection basket of the repair department of a large chain shoe shop. A pair of moderate stilettos were so ineptly heeled that the tip 'had completely reversed after three hours' wear; and an expensive pair of court shoes was obviously forced on to an inappropriate last, to the eternal disfigurement of the shoes.

These disasters are typical results of •sboddy workmanship; the actual quality of the material used for the repair takes longer to discover. There are four or five grades of leather used: for soles, but usually each shoe-mender has only one price for soling. The customer pays his money without taking any choice.

This particular problem of quality has-.now been tackled by the Cut Soling AssoCiation. Stung into action by the disastrous drop in the use of leather for soles (only 32 per cent of the nation's shoes now have leather soles) the GSA have issued a quality mark bearing their initials, which will be stamped into 'the waist of each sole. The mark will only be used on the first two grades of soling leather (the second grade is in- ferior to the first in appearance only, and not in quality) and it carries with it a limited guarantee of fair wear.

Of course the peculiarities of the wearer— where he walks and how, what he weighs and what he does with his feet---play too big a part for any hard-and-fast guarantees for leather 'Incisive brushwork.'

soles to be practicable. But this 'quality mark' does protect the wearer against the use of shoddy materials—though not, unfortunately, against shoddy workmanship. If the repairer agrees that the customer has not had reasonable wear from a pair of 'quality marked' soles, he will resole the shoes free of charge, and receive from the CSA two new pairs of soles in compensation. If the repairer claims the shoes have been worn on Ben Nevis and the wearer says they have never touched anything rougher than the inside of a taxi, the"gliipute can be referred to the Cut Soling Association, 21 Knightsbridge, Hyde Park Corner,.,London, SW1. I hope that the scheme gets the public support it deserves.

I think there is more to that revealing figure of 32 per cent. than mere dissatisfaction with the wearing quality of a leather sole. It reflects dis- satisfaction with the whole business of taking shoes to be repaired, with the damage done and the length of time taken to do it. If man-made soles reduce the number of times that a pair of shoes actually goes to the mender, then no amount of propaganda about the greater com- fort and health of leather soles will cut much ice.

In the big plate-glass shoe stores the repairs department tends to get the Cinderella treatment —naturally selling new shoes is more profitable. (A cynic might even say that a better repair service would undermine sales.) One manager I spoke to, while admiring his latest display of petal-coloured dainties, admitted that he thought his repair section was more trouble than it was worth. They had to have one, he said, because Lilley and Skinner had set the pace, but the re- pairs trickled in rather slowly. This was hardly surprising because they trickled out again even more slowly. An 'express' service which takes seven days to sole a shoe is not going to catch any rainbows, and who is going to wait twenty- four hours for Twin Tops' to be fitted, when the while-you-wait heel bars at Selfridge's and Wool- worth's (New Oxford Street) or Lilley and Skinner will do the job in half that number of minutes?

If Lilley and Skinner refuse a heeling job on the grounds that the .shoe is too worn, go round the corner into Duke Street where there is a 'little man' with a rather less high-handed while- You-wait service. I have never been able to under- stand why the big repairers refuse shoes which the small man will cheerfully repair : surely the large, expert service ought to tackle more diffi- cult work, not less?

The little man, too, can often get the job done in half the time it takes an ordinary branch store repair organisation. He has no transport delays, as the shoes are mended on the premises, and if they are not ready as promised, the fury which is so frustratingly useless at the big repair depart- ment may produce some result at the local mender. It is a pity that so many of them are cobblers (OED definition : 'clumsy workman,' 'botcher') rather than craftsmen.

And it is strange that these self-employed men should be so tied to the habits of the shoe in- dustry that many of them join in that great, in- convenient August closure which shuts down most of the shoe repair factories. Tread warily in August; your shoe-mender is probably on holiday.

Another way of travelling from London to Paris: Mr. Forman of Edinburgh writes• to re- mind me of the Silver Arrow service run by Silver City Airways. He did the single journey from Paris. 'Leave Gare du Nord 11.50 a.m. in a reserved coach with restaurant car. De-train at Le Touquet and board Dakota; land at Manston, Kent; board train (same facilities as on French side) at Margate, arrive Victoria 5 p.m. London time. Your luggage is wafted away in Paris and handed back at Victoria. Escorted all the way by • official (and by charming, too-young-to-fly air hostess from Manston to London). The whole affair is fetchingly amateurish yet they can't do enough to please. I enjoyed it enormously and was glad to find an alternative to BEA, albeit more devious, but cheaper by far.'

This service has been operating on a 'pilot' basis for the past few months and becomes a regular service on May 29, which may explain why Mr. Forman found it 'fetchingly amateurish.' I think what he means is that it is less official (and offi- cious?) than the major airlines. 1 have had a good deal of experience of Silver City's cross-Channel air service for cars (Lydd to Le Touquet), and that is one of the best-run operations in the airline business.

The aircraft used on the Silver Arrow service, actual route, London to Paris, is : Victoriali Margate in reserved compartment; bus fi`.,, Margate co 11Unston; Hermes from Manstoto:. Le Touquet; bus to Etaples; train to Paris l''' return fare, London-Paris. is nine guineas. tat you do not have to pay airport taxes (75. 61' 0 London Airport four New Francs at Le noun minutespeto or bus fares between city and airport .5s. in l`'ll); don, three New Francs in Paris). Fares do 0`6 increase at weekends or at peak periods. All It all, less direct but cheaper and more fun than 1i, ,,' major airlines and one more way of avoiding ll'' disgusting coffee at London Airport.

* Does anyone else, I wonder, dread the wail out of an LP needle as much as I do? Th°11/1 not unnaturally ham-fisted, I have very gre,"' difficulty in screwing the new needle into trl head of my Collaro pick-up, sometimes taking half an hour to complete the job. On one .003. sion I lost the infinitesimal screw in10 the machine (which seems to have digested it sat'' ; factorily) and was quite unable to get a new °II; even from radio component shops. Finally ; wrote to Collaro, who very handsomely sell me several of the screws free. But this 0151 surely be something that happens to other peoPic: it would be nice if you could buy new screw' wherever you can buy the needles.

* From now on the Consumer Advisory Coon' cil (who run Shopper's Guide) will have to rr strict their complaints service to members-1.e'; subscribers to the Guide. 1 take it this will Iln affect readers of 'Consuming Interest' u ho will naturally already be subscribers. If even after all this time they are not—I0s. to Orchard House' Orchard Street, London, WI, will set them riglIt'