A Decent Screw!

[Paul Mc Cann]

...........and a machime to x-ray your feet

[Bob Smith (UK)]

Never heard of that. Was that back in the days when radiation was good for you?

Bob

[Mary Fisher]

At Hitchins department store in Leeds more than fifty years ago I was fascinated by these. They worked on a suction/vacuum principle. Haven't seen them since :-(

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

It wasn't free when I went!

Worth seeing but you need more than one day to do it justice. Like the Museum of Ulster Life (I think it's called).

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

No, they still had them in the 60s.

I had my feet measured on one. I have very broad feet. My feet didn't fit on the screen.

Is anyone listening to the Woman's Hour serial this week? It's scary ...

Mary

[Andy Hall]

Oh yes.

They were called a Pedoscope and it was part of the ritual in any Clark's approved supplier of kid's shoes.

First the assistant measured the feet with a gauge (as today), then try the shoes on, and finally stand under pedoscope to see the feet in a fluorescent screen.

This is roughly what they looked like, although the picture is an American model

ones that I can remember were a tall box with an aperture like the one in the picture but with slots on the sides and top and system of mirrors so that the kid could see in the top or front, assistant one side and mum or dad on the other.

One reason that they disappeared is that you could also see if a shoe had been badly made and several nails were missing or knocked in at odd angles.

I reckon that they had disappeared by the early sixties.

[Stefek Zaba]

[ ... ]

Still in use Ooop Noorth (Wilmslow) in the later sixties - had my feet done more than once with this brilliant (?) invention when a nipper, can't have been earlier than 1967...

Stefek

[Steve]

You can see one in the film " million dollar brain" with Michael Caine

Steve

[raden]

In message , Owain writes

I bet you had some Wayfarers (?) too

... with the compass in the heel and animal tracks on the soles

[Stefek Zaba]

BASTARD! ;-) Dunno if he did, but I certainly did. There was me thinking my brain had *useful* memories, and instead your throwaway remark brought back vivid memories of digging that damn compass out of the heel!

Thanks - for nothing :-)

[raden]

DIB DIB DIB

[Owain]

"raden" wrote | >I can remember the shoe shop used when I was little having a | >cuckoo-clock, which fascinated me greatly and meant that | >shoe-buying trips had to be synchronised to the hour :-) | I bet you had some Wayfarers (?) too | ... with the compass in the heel and animal tracks on the soles

Yeah right, black Clarks shoes for winter and brown Clarks sandals for summer.

Owain

[Lobster]

Oh, I'd have killed for a pair of those but I had a deprived childhood (in that my mum point-blank refused to buy them, on principle).

David

[Owain]

"Andy Hall" wrote | (Said he, fed up because the Times has turned exclusively tabloid | this week - don't know what the world's coming to.

I wonder if they'll have a special Reader Offer for tabloid-sized budgerigar cages and cat litter trays, as the new paper will not fit readers' existing receptacles without Sellotaping sections together.

Owain

[raden]

Yup, I had to fight and throw a tantrum to get mine

IIRC

[Andy Hall]

What's the format of the Scotsman these days?

I can claim Scots descent at least, although perhaps this paper isn't entirely suitable for sassenachs (or saesneg if you prefer )

[Brian Sharrock]

_Very hazy memories_ came as rusted synapses fired ... but;- Isn't it DYB DYB DYB? (Do Your Best!) ! with the responding howl .. We'll DOB DOB DOB ? (Do Our Best) !

[Mary Fisher]

DOB DOB DOB

[Mary Fisher]

I'm not sure they were around when I were a little lass but they wouldn't have been affordable anyway. I can't remember if shoes were rationed but we did only have, at most, two pairs a year. Sandals had the toes cut out to allow for growth. I remember my mother saying that some shoes had cardboard soles.

Ee, the good old days!

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

To say nothing of uniting bees ...

Mary