Shoes What I Remember

The little red wellies that told a big lie, that gave me false confidence, that led me behind a row of shops and up to my waist in a Doctor Foster Special. Boy did I scream, I can still hear myself now. When the grown-ups came running, they rescued me with unsuppressed mirth. Bastard adults. Bastard wellies.

The brown leather sandals with the brogue-style perforated toe and dinky buckles on the side. I couldn't wait to grow out of them. They were a constant reminder that I was just a little boy. I wanted to be a big boy.

'TUF Pathfinders' had animal tracks on the bottom so you could confidently tell your friends and relations that any combination of otter; badger; fox; rabbit; scottish wildcat; duck-billed platypus; had been rooting around in the rockery. The proof was on the shoe. They also had a compass in the heel part of the insole. Presumably, this was to back up my primary compass should something untoward happen to it whilst out orienteering in South London. Throughout this particular craze, the playgrounds of England were full of kids staring into a shoe, standing on one leg and arguing about where North was.

Doctor Marten's. DMs. Mine were ox blood, eight-hole. Every kid had to have a pair by the time they were about twelve. If they didn't they were fair game for a kick in the shins or a boot up the arse. All the bovver boys wore them. The custom was that you'd have to 'christen' a new pair. This meant drawing blood and daubing a cross on the toecap. I wonder how the middle-classes would feel if they knew this, as they walk home from the football on their comfortable 'Airwear' soles carrying hemp shopping bags overflowing with oysters and eels. They'd probably feel pretty cool.

'Jam shoes'. Winkle pickers with a perforated white upper, the rest black; blue; red; brown or green. Side buckle or two hole lace up. Very thin soles and one inch heels. Worn by The Jam and punks all over London. You wore jam shoes with carpenter's trousers, drainpipes or pegs. I'll never forget those shoes. I'm reminded of them every time I look at the manky toenail that replaced the nice one I had to have removed because of pointy Jam shoes.

At fourteen years old I'd graduated onto ten-hole steels. You weren't meant to wear them to school but fuck 'em, I thought. What were they gonna do, send me home? I wore them all the time and enjoyed cracking the toecaps against the kerbstone. It made me feel hard. You could really hurt someone if you gave them a boot with these.

Every Saturday, Mark Perman would come and knock for me at Irby House and we'd cross the footbridge over the railway, then get the 122 and go down to Lewisham precinct to hang out. We'd buy records, muck about with other kids and smoke fags. We smoked Player's No.6, the most popular cigarette in Britain, there was a picture of a packet in The Guinness Book Of Records. When the time was right, we'd saunter over to Halford's at the other end of the High Street where we would nick a can of spray paint. The colour was chosen at random. It'd be whatever you could nick.

Back at Perman's house we'd go out to his back yard, take off our DMs and unlace them. Once we'd placed old newspapers underneath to protect the concrete, our boots would get a couple of coats of fresh paint. Whilst they were drying we'd go inside to watch Mark's dad watching the wrestling on the telly. A Smithfield butcher, he'd twitch and squirm in his chair in time with Jackie Pallow and Mick McManus as they put the screws on each other.

One evening we were bowling down Brockley Road in our newly sprayed bovver boots (they were silver this time), resplendent in our denim jackets with our jeans rolled up to reveal all the lace-holes we noticed four really big Natty Dreads walking towards us. "Oh shit", said Mark.

"They're gonna fuckin' kill us dressed like this", said I.

If we ran we'd be done for, so the only thing to do was to take a deep breath, look straight ahead and walk right through them. As we passed and I held onto my arse we heard one of the Dreads say, "Raas man ,look 'pon 'im boot"!