BOOTS

Rather breathlessly, (I need to shed a good few pounds), hauling on a pair of stout boots, proof against the perils of the English winter, I thought how useful these workaday items are and how much they have improved in my lifetime. Of course there is also a dazzling selection of up-market wellies, as worn by the plutocrats, the Royals and the country set, British Hunters and Barbours, US Muck Boots and eye-wateringly expensive French offerings from Le Chameau. Seems a shame to make them dirty, but from Glastonbury to Burghley, mud, glorious mud is inevitable.

Le Chameau Chasseur, a snip at £340

Ignoring such exotica, in my youth 60 years ago, stout leather boots were reckoned either exclusively military or irredeemably proletarian. The noisy spit-and-polish parade ground, the factory or the farmyard were the natural home for those hob-nailed or tackety objects. Those days are long gone and the Forces (bless ‘em all) have recently ordered a rather fetching pair of new combat boots.

The new combat boots

No longer all-leather but of light practical materials, rubber-soled, easily laced up, they are now coloured brown – black boots are only required for ceremonial occasions.

We civilians can don our US-influenced Timberlands, our Clark’s or a hundred other excellent outdoor brands while the ladies pose deliciously in their cosy Uggs or elegant Guccis or Chanels.

Boot does not always have pleasant connotations: to give someone the boot is summarily to dismiss them, to kick them out. A boot camp tends to be a military prison with a harsh regime. To submit someone to the boot is to crush their feet and lower leg in a boot-shaped instrument of torture. Not our agreeable kind of boots at all. We British heap all manner of clobber into the boot of our car, especially on that holiday trip. The US calls it a “trunk” – where are the elephants?

In “the good old days” there was a servant known as the Boots who, especially in hotels and inns, scraped, cleaned and polished the footwear of patrons. The most famous Boots was Sam Weller, discovered by Mr Pickwick in the White Hart Inn at Borough, Southwark. His Cockney wit was hugely enjoyed by the 1830s reading public and he was crucial to the early success of Charles Dickens.

Sam Weller, Mr Pickwick's servant

But say the word “Boots” to a British audience and it will instantly assume you are talking about Boots the Chemist, the chain of pharmacies seen on almost every British High Street and shopping centre. The business was founded in 1849 as a herbalist by John Boot but developed by his son Jesse Boot (poor fellow to have such a moniker inflicted upon him!) in Nottingham and prospered mightily. By 1914 there were 560 Boots shops in Britain and Jesse became Baron Trent. The company remained a UK public company until 2006 and then after various private equity transactions and option exercises, Boots fell to the US chain Walgreens. Boots was a philanthropic company, caring for its employees and assisting the city of Nottingham. But the world moves on….

Being an old-fashioned chap, I cherish the now archaic use of the expression “What boots it?” – What does it avail? This 1859 verse from Edward FitzGerald encapsulates the fatalism in his wonderful translation of The Rubiaiyat of Omar Khayyam and undermines our assumptions about Victorian attitudes.

Ah, fill the Cup – what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn Tomorrow, and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if Today be sweet!

SMD,

 10.03.16,

 Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016