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Moderator's note: These stories were originally posted by Lucy who is a contributor on Jenny's Discussion Forum. Spikes Fan has kindly reposted them here for you: Lucy's Story (1) Posted by Lucy on May 22, 2003, 14:59:13 Hi Fred! Thank you for your kind interest. I am a businesswoman who has always believed in wearing a smart suite and high heels. The best way of answering may be to tell my story. In order to be brief, I'll tell just the first part. Then, if anyone expresses an interest in hearing more, I'll post further instalment(s). Born in 1944, when still in primary school (just South of London, Mummy and all the other ladies went out in highish but thickish '40s/50s heels. Stilettos had never been seen. Then quite suddenly, in 1956 when I was twelve, stilettos hit the streets! Everyone reacted! Grandma and her generation said they 'Looked cheap', but Mum soon came home wearing brand new dark brown 4" stiletto courts. They looked MARVELLOUS to me and my schoolgirl friends that saw them and we yearned to be old enough to get some ourselves. In the meantime, I asked to 'Try-on Mummy's heels' even though they were too big for me. I'll never forget the moment I stood up in them - WOW! Immediately I felt like a woman. My whole posture changed, I shot up in stature, combined with an elegant precariousness. From that moment I commandeered them and virtually 'lived' in them around the house after school, although Mummy always had first call on them for her proper outdoor wear. We all worshipped Elvis Presley. A girl's magazine published a centre-spread colour photo of a little bit of Elvis each week, and I bought successive editions which I had to stick together to finally make a life-size Elvis picture. I remember gazing at my giant Elvis and imagining how impressed he would be if he could see me perched on those 4" stilettos! A year or two later, I was still 'living' in Mummy's same shoes around the house when I started realising that they were no longer flopping off my feet. My feet had grown to fit them perfectly! I was then about thirteen-and-a-half, and my class (mixed girls and boys) were planning and end-of-term class party at a small local ballroom. Some of the boys had formed a skiffle (forerunner of rock-n-roll) group and being out of school hours, the organiser told us girls that we could wear high heels. I promptly pleaded with Mummy to let me wear her lovely 4-inchers out of ther house for the first time, but she said 'No, thirteen-year-olds are too young for heels, but she took me to the shoe shop and bought me some 2" kitten heels for the party. I tried to look pleased, but really felt dull in them after wearing her 4" heels for so long at home. As the party date approached, it got worse when two or three of the other girls in the class boasted that they had been allowed to buy 3" stilettos for the party. Finally, the party date arrived and I did a very naughty thing. I went off to the party wearing my new 2" heels, but with Mummy's 4" stilettos hidden in my bag. I'll tell you how I got on in them and other later adventures if I get any response wanting to hear more. Love, Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (2) Posted by Lucy on May 23, 2003, 2:30:25 Thank you for your encouragement Fred, Spikesfan and Sinkem! OK, so on we go: On the way to the class party I changed into Mummy's 4" stilettos, immediately experiencing for the first time the sensation of clicking along the pavement (instead of on our soundless carpets). It was so grown-up! Entering the dance-hall, I saw straight away that I had the highest heels amongst us thirteen-year-olds. The boys in our class seemed to notice it too. I also wore a nice black dress and some make-up, but most of the nudges and admiring glances were caused by my footwear. However, I began finding that a long evening's standing, balancing and jiving (1960's dancing) on a hard floor was much more strenous that pottering and sitting around inside the home. I found my ankles beginning to wobble and tremble with the strain of trying to stand erect, and before the end I turned one heel (it collapsed outwards)right in the middle of the dancefloor in front of all my classmates. It was utterly humiliating, and I remember fleeing to have a cry in the ladies room. My stupid pride prevented my from changing into the 2" kitten heels for the 1-mile walk home with some of the others, so I wobbled and teetered the whole way back in Mummy's shoes, turning one of them over twice more before changing out of them on our front path. Entering the house, my angry mother said "WHERE ARE MY BEST SHOES YOUNG LADY?" She'd missed them! I sheepishly took them out of my bag and she put them on saying "What have you done to them Lucy? they feel different - all weak and unsafe". There was an almightly row with my parents about me spoiling them by wobbling around in them when I was too young and inexperienced. However, soon afterwards good old Daddy placated us both by offering to buy Mummy a new 4" replacement pair, and a similar pair for me so I didn't mess around in Mummy's any more, but on one condition: that I must practice walking properly in mine and must not overdo it again. So I now chose my VERY OWN 4" HIGH HEELS at only thirteen, a dark red pair with the uppers low-cut at the toe and sides. I was determined to master walking in them much better in future and every time I put them on a tingle shot through me and I felt like a film star. I was all set to show the outside world my OWN heels! More heel progress to follow (if you are still keen?), but my current heels belong right at the end of my mini-memoirs! Love, Lucy

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Lucy's Story (3) Posted by Lucy on May 24, 2003, 1:15:00 Hi Sinkem, Erica, Scuffy, Cheryl, Stu, Patience, Fred, Spikesfan!, and thanks to Firefox for conserving my little offerings on the Mega Forum -All extremely flattering - thank you everyone! To continue: I should have mentioned that the very first stilettos to explode into the shoeshops in the 50s were Italian (I think) and most had the bottom half of the heel in naked shiny steel to deliberately liken them to STILETTOS (thin daggers), the name which has stuck ever since. Unlike today, there was very little variation in styles, but then there didn't need to be because they were CLASSIC and FANTASTIC. They were all plain courts (pumps) with no frills, straps or other nonsense, with low-cut uppers covering only our toes. I still think nothing has EVER beaten those classic 50s stilettos for sheer class. I was indescribably thrilled to have MY OWN 4" STILETTOS when still only thirteen. To avoid further humiliation in public, I restricted my first walks to short errands to shops and back,trying to keep both heels upright and strengthening my necessary ankle and leg muscles. Although not wanting make my beloved shoes rickety, in odd standing-still moments I could not resist some deliberate side-to-side rocking (as now advised in Jenny's 'wearing' section)when no-one was looking in order to sense the sheer height and femininity of 1/4" thin stilettos. It might seem silly to adults, but it was unbelievable thrilling to a girl just entering her teens. Over the years, I have seen a number of women sneakily enjoying wobbling their heels like that, particularly when in stationary queues. In the 1950s, stilettos abounded in their THOUSANDS. Just about every teenager and every mother wore them, always fully visible with skirts and stockings (no jeans!). Hardly anyone yet had a television, so on saturday nights many hundreds of people flocked to the cinemas and dances, and there were HOARDS of stilettos heels click-clicking throughout the town. Whole armies of us! A constant problem was getting our heels stuck between paving stones, but councils soon responded by filling all the narrow cracks with cement. The second problem was caused by all our stilettos having ultra-pointed 'winkle-picker' toes. Firstly, the extreme slope of the shoe cause our toes to become rammed agonisingly forward towards the point, and secondly, the empty point itself tended to curl upwards in an ugly way. We all eased these problems by pushing a wad of cotton wool into the empty point. Also, in those pioneering days, some manufacturers did not yet put a strong metal shank into the arched sole. I saw a lot of girls walking on mis-shapen shoes where the stiletto heels had become angled right forwards towards the toe-box. For some reason, our group of girls called these "Quaking" shoes. This distortion would pull the heel of the shoe backwards, allowing the foot to slop out of it at every step. On saturday nights, it became quite fun to hold a "Spot the quakers" competition amongst ourselves. These days, high heels seem to be made with much more strength and professionalism. As our confidence grew (and when parents weren't looking),we started wearing our high stilettos to school. One morning when about five of us came clicking towards the school, the most enormous cheer went up from all the boys. We felt like a million dollars and grinned away like mad! In class, I think the male teachers were secretly turned on by our heels, but several female teachers were snidey. Our English mistress (who still wore old-fashioned thick 40s heels called our heels 'Silly skimpy efforts' and our attractive young French mistress who WAS trendy and with-it in very high stilettos looked vaguely miffed that us youngsters were giving her serious competition. However, these heel incursions only lasted a few months because one morning the headmistress asked all the girls to stay behind after assembly and told us that heels over 1" were banned forthwith. We were devastated, except for a few class frumps who never wore heels and who adopted smug smiles. However, we wore our heels all the more out of school, and within school more and more sexy flatties began appearing. Elasticated closed-in horrors(now called 'loafers')were dropped in favour of black leather courts with slightly sculpted-in 1" heels and very low-cut toes. It quickly became the "in" thing to go for loose sizes that we could flip-flop and clatter along the corridors in what we thought was a provocative, rebellious manner. However, again the headmistress called us all together. We were ranked into long lines and had to pass a test where we took turns to stand on tip-toes, and any shoes that failed to stay gripping our heels were banned from school. Thus those of us with loose flatties had to report back soon afterwards wearing snug-fitting versions. But again the headmistress was thwarted: as we girls walked along the corridors, it suddenly became a hilarious craze amongst the packs of boys to spring towards us from behind and stand on the backs of our flatties, resulting in a sudden heap of empty left or right shoes littering the floor and a load of one-shoed girls hopping about. 'Sprogging'they called it. It spread like wildfire to every class in the school until at every breaktime all corridors resounded with the yelps of triumphant boys and the plaintiff protest of us girls. Our shoes suffered this constant sprogging countless times each day, until our heel-backs all became trampled down so much that even those new well-fitting shoes were all flopping away merrily with the headmistress seemingly powerless to do anything more about it. At going-home-time, the townsfolk saw over three hundred schoolgirls emerging and running for buses and trains with their sexy flatties flapping and flying about in all directions. Then the ultimate damper happened. Not to be beaten, the headmistress issued us girls with a typed edict that only "Nurse, one-button shoes" (now called 'Mary-Janes' on the web) would be permitted thereafter. Their secure instep straps finally put paid to all sprogging and flip-flopping. So boring! The only remaining interest after that was the French mistress's forays into ever higher heels and backless styles. Sorry heel-lovers, I've veered away from heels for a bit,but I'd love to continue recounting my high stiletto adventures if you aren't too bored by now. Love to all, Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (4) Posted by Lucy on May 24, 2003, 22:13:02 Hi All!, and don't worry Stu, writing these little memories is a fun doddle compared with my daily business paper-mountain. Yes, I should try to contact the boys from my class.... isn't there some 'Find a lost friend' computer programme??? Here's Episode 4: By 1958 (I was now 14), I was feeling much more accomplished in my 4" stilettos and spent whole evenings and weekends in them without problems. Between 14 and 15, I discovered that boys were becoming hugely more interesting than girls! When out shopping, Mummy noticed that I had increasingly been half-closing my eyes whenever trying to see distant objects. I told her that for some reason this made them look a bit clearer, so Mummy bundled me across to the opticians and I was diagnosed as becoming short-sighted. He said I would have to wear glasses all the time (were contact lenses even around in those days?)and I had a little weep. Despite choosing the most ultra-fashionable frames of the day - with pointed upswept turquoise-coloured wings at the edges, I convinced myself that everyone would dismiss me as a frump from now on. Daddy had already asked me what I wanted for my birthday, so to cheer myself up I lead him over to Oliver's Shoeshop window and pointed to the highest stiletto heels on display in the entire town. The heel-height measured an illogical 4 3/8" (much later I realised they were Continental 110mm heels). The sleek, streamlined lines of those black patent leather shoes and needle heels were utterly deadly! Daddy was torn between feebly protesting that 'Mummy would object' and trying to hide his ill-concealed excitement at seeing them being slipped on to my young feet. I stood up and that first rush of adrenaline at perching in heels came rushing back again tenfold. These felt incredible! I felt that extra vital bit of height really thrusting me up under me all the time and the sense of feminine precariousness was overwhelming. My size 5 feet were rammed right up towards being verticle, but it was HEAVENLY! In this daze, I hardly heard Daddy say "We'll take them please; Happy birthday Loo!". I would not be parted with them, and opted to wear them out of the shop. However, they were MUCH more difficult to walk in than the 4-inchers, I had to take much shorter, more teetering steps. It didn't help that flared, pleated skirts were out and tight, pencil skirts were coming in. Naturally I was one of the first in the town to wear the latter and this hobbled my stride even more. I admitted to Daddy that I couldn't manage the full walk home for the first time in those heels, so he took me into a milk bar to change down into my 4" heels. The town's milk and coffee bars all had Juke boxes and were packed with teddy boys with their drainpipe trousers and brothel-creepers. They all loved watching me changing between my two pairs of stilettos and I got lots of thumbs-up and winks! The next Saturday night, my first boyfriend Derek invited me to 'The flicks'(the cinema)to see a new film starring Sophia Loren. She played a poor, barefoot peasant girl in a remote Italian coastal village. (Anyone remember this film and it's title?)In one scene out on a rough track, she unwraps a shoe box and puts on the most stunningly high pair of brand-new stiletto heels. This immediately got a thunderous roar of approval from the dozens of teddy boys who always occupied the front half downstairs. Derek was dead chuffed at this. Immediately the lights went up at the end, he called everyone's attention to my own stunning shoes, saying they looked EXACTLY LIKE SOPHIA LOREN'S. In modern parlance, our street-cred shot up a mile high, and Derek was as proud as punch. The whole effect of those killer shoes more than made up for me having to wear glasses. The only thing was, I had to stand around until we made sure that we were the last to leave the cinema so that those countless admirers didn't notice that as yet, I could hardly walk in them! 'Still', I thought 'If Sophia Loren can succeed in mastering them, then I'll jolly-well make sure that I do". Next time, I'll tell you about attending special high-heel-wearing-lessons. Love for now, Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (5) Posted by Lucy on May 25, 2003, 21:20:23 Hi all!, Welcome Roger and thanks for adding your kind comments to everybody else's! Episode 5: After wearing them those gleaming new 4 3/8" stilettos, I always placed them in pride-of-place on a low shelf that I could see from my bed. Before going to sleep and again after waking-up I would gaze at those awesome needle-thin heels, hardly believing what a lucky fifteen-year-old girl I was. They were MINE to walk in whenever I wanted and wherever I wanted (except to school.....humph!) One school lunchtime I unexpectedly returned home to collect a geography book that I needed, and sneaked a glance at my birthday-shoes shelf. My heart missed a beat - THEY WERE GONE!....STOLEN! But just then I heard the click, click, click of stiletto heels from beneath my bedroom window, and looking down in astonishment, I saw Mummy and our cleaning-lady Dorothy (a petite, cheerful, plump 30-year-old)taking it in turns to parade right around our paved rear courtyard, holding their own private shoe-fashion show featuring MY highest-in-the-town heels! My first instinct was to burst outdoors at them in a furious rage, but then I quickly saw the funny side of it. Remembering the almightly row that I got for 'Wearing Mummy's shoes' outdoors without her permission, now the boot was on the other foot (excuse the pun!). I decided to stay very quiet and watch. It was actually rather sweet. Mummy managed to walk superbly in my birthday skyscrapers with Dorothy's eyes glued to every step. Next came Dorothy's turn and this was a different matter. None of us had ever seen her in ANY high heels at all, and when she tried to walk in my stunners her knees shot right forward and she tottered and wobbled all around the courtyard with her arms stuck out sideways for balance like a drunken trainee tightrope walker. I feared that her wild, erratic heel-scraping and clicking might disturb the neighbours, but eventually she just about made it back to one of the sun-chairs. At this point, I quietly quietly sneaked out and back to the school, chuckling to myself all the way. That evening, my beloved stilettos had re-appeared back on their bedroom shelf, placed exactly as always. No-one ever mentioned anything about that courtyard episode, but Mummy must have shot along to Olivers' Shoes soon afterwards, because she appeared in an identical 4 3/8" pair to mine (except for being navy blue), much to Daddy's badly-disguised delight. As mine had done with me, they became Mummy's favourites for a long time afterwards and we both enjoyed going out in them and clicking along side-by-side and getting countless admiring glances (and a few very long stares!). The biggest surprise occurred a fortnight after that secret fashion show, when my parents and I spied Dorothy and her husband also walking to the cinema. Her arms were again flailing away like windmills because on her feet were brand new black patent 4 3/8" stilettos. She had chosen my exact model and colour! They pitched her whole unpracticed body forwards, and she minced and teetered the last 40 yards to the box office before making a final lunge to grab the ticket counter for much-needed support. Mind you, I shouldn't criticise her inadequacies too much because I was soon to discover that my own high-heel posture was much less than perfect. At 16, I passed sufficient GCE 'O'level exams to leave school (goodbye heel regulations!)and enter business college. The town's Commercial Academy For Ladies was only a short high-heel walk from our home - great! It not only offered tuition in shorthand and typewriting, but in everything else to prepare ladies successfully to enter the world of business. We tippy-tapped away on old-fashioned typewriters, gradually speeding-up in time with music played over loudspeakers. We also learned all the skills of grooming (manicure, hair-styles, make-up etc.) elocution (speech training), table etiquette, social graces and office protocol. Early on in the course, Miss Sheridan called me into her office and said that if I insisted on turning-up every day in the highest heels that the Academy had ever seen, then either I must be trained in correct, elegant posture, or move down to somewhat lower heels. 'Take a look at your side-view in this full-length mirror Lucy - you're one big zig-zag!' Sure enough, my extreme heel-height had thrust my knees muck further forward than I had realised, causing my thighs to zig-zag back from them, my bum to stick out, and my shoulders and breasts to become hunched forward. The lower-heel-option was decidely OUT for me, so I accepted he offer to arrange for me what were then called deportment (posture improvement) classes. I loved these, because high heels and smart suits with knee-length skirts were positively encouraged as essential dress for the successfulk career-woman. How times have changed! In those days, high heels were never associated with anything seedy or prostitution etc. They were universally regarded as the height of elegance and sophistication, worn by all smart ladies included the most respected in society up to and including our present Queen Elizabeth II (although her heels have got lower and chunkier with advancing age). Later prime minister Margaret Thatcher wore 4" stilettos and the great concert violinist Heifitz advised his lady pupils to perform their recitals in suitably high heels. Our class of 10 girls was ordered to dress accordingly, and it caused considerable amusement when the two meekest student had to go out and buy higher heels and slimmer skirts for the course! To train us in correct posture, books were balanced on our heads and we had to walk around in a stately procession with our bodies, necks and heads erect. We did many backs-to-the-wall exercises to try to get all parts of our body to touch the wall in a dead-straight line, and all the time wearing high heels. We trained in 'corridor walking' and 'office-entering'elegance where we had to compensate for high heel-height with increased ankle-depression and NOT by allowing the knees to stick forward one whisker - that was the cardinal sin! One day, Miss Sheridan took all 10 of us up to a London fashion-modelling school to observe their catwalk lessons. The models all had beautiful deportment despite wearing even higher heels than we had seen before ('London heels' we immediately called them)and the celebrated 'Catwalk Flip'(conveniently described just below on this message forum) had obviously been instilled into all of the modelling students who were using it with devastating effect. I particularly loved that, but Miss Sheridan said 'That impudent flip is only for models and show-biz types, not for you business students of decorum!". Back again at the Academy, we were trained in standing and sitting properly with discreet elegance - hands clasped and always the knees together and the high-heeled feet together. Our weight was to be put on one foot, whilst the other shoe had to be tilted so that the high heel was exposed out to the side for elegant effect(we were told that shoe shops always displayed the outer side of every shoe). We were firmly instructed NEVER INDULGE IN ANY SHOE-PLAY, HEEL-WOBBLING or DANGLING during office hours as this 'Has been found to distract the gentlemen!'. All this thorough training seems to have vanished today, but the unparalleled elegance of that 1950s high-heeled fashion (encapsulated in vintage photos like ) transformed all of us student and has certainly sttod me in good stead throughout my business career and social life, right up to the present day. Well, in order not to bore you with ALL of my high-heel-memories (I have hundreds), that just about completes my "Girlhood in Heels" (unless you'd like to hear about my "Adulthood in London Heels" sometime?). All my love, Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (6) Posted by Lucy on June 7, 2003, 23:55:43 Hi again to all who've kindly replied to my ongoing story: Firefox, Lampwort, Eric, Erica, Roger, Henry Johnson, Spikejam, Sinkem, Doug, Sam, Patience, Romu, Sandra, Tom, Stu, Scuffy, Cheryl, Fred, Spikesfan, Arno, and all other readers! Well, this instalment is an interim between my childhood and adulthood: I take up the story when I was still studying at Miss Sheridan's Business Academy. I wore my 4 3/8" (110mm) stiletto heels to the Academy every day without fail, but I kept an eye on the gently changing fashions. In the winter of 1960 purple coats came in - every girl wanted a purple coat and brown stiletto heels. The winklepicker toes were becoming sliced-off at the very tip to give a little square toe, and a bar-strap came in across the top of the instep, which to my eye took away from the uninterrupted sweep of the leg and foot down into the low-cut toe of the high-heeled shoe. I stuck to wearing my classic pointed, unencumbered 4 3/8" courts! Also, the summer of that year was when I first remember seeing very high cork wedge-heeled backless shoes for the first time. I don't think we knew the words 'mules' or 'slides' in those days. At that time, none of them had platforms, but the highest were 4" high. Ever the trend-setter, I rushed in to be the first to be seen in these around the town's outdoor (and only) swimming pool. However, I found that I didn't enjoy wearing these as much as my beloved stilettos, firstly because they weren't quite as high, and secondly because the base of the cork heel was about 1.5" wide and I realised how much I missed the more thrilling and precarious 'wobbly' feel of 1/4" stilettos. Also more than one of my boyfriends commented that the stilettos looked infinitely more alluring, so that settled it! Around that time, the whole town started talking about a nearby scandal. The local newsaper had reported that up on the top of Box Hill, a local beauty spot, a policemen had found a 'suspicious' man sitting in a solitary car in the Lookout's car park. Daddy read-out the article to Mummy, reciting that the man was found wearing full women's clothing, make-up and high heels. The townsfolk gossipped about this for days afterwards, and I was curious to note that his high heels seemed to shock people much more than the clothing or the make-up. "Disgraceful" and "Ought not to be allowed" everyone was saying, but I remember feeling very sorry for the man, thinking he had obviously been enjoying his clothes and heel-wearing without doing any harm to anybody, and I hoped he would not be too badly treated after being discovered. That autumn, I realised that I needed an additional pair of very high heels myself. This was because my 4 3/8" stilettos had been inseparable from me, and if I carried on wearing them every day they would soon be worn right out. Also, I was no longer the only wearer of the highest-heels-in-town. Mummy and Dorothy had both bought the identical make (even though Dorothy was hopeless in hers!)and quite a number of other girls in the town were appearing in them, including three other fellow students at our Academy. Mummy and Daddy agreed to my request and said that I could choose another pair of shoes as their Christmas present to me. My mind had been going back again and again to the 'London heels' worn by those modelling students. I told my classmate Velma that in the Christmas holidays I planned to go back up to London to try and find a pair of those incredible shoes. She immediately said that she had been dreaming of doing exactly the same thing, so when term broke up we went up on the train for a day's shoe-seeking. No sooner had we alighted from the train in London than we were almost put-off buying very high heels. Velma drew my attention to the girl walking along the platform in front of us. She was wearing a nice short red-riding-hood coat, a nice knee-length black skirt and striking fishnet stockings, but the SHOES! They were black patent leather winklepicker courts with stiletto heels over 4" high, but we'd never seen anyone worse at wearing them. her knees were thrust so far forward that she was almost bent double, and her feet were leaning alarmingly outwards on her wildy tilting stilettos making her look bowlegged. It was a miracle that she managed to reach the end of the platform without either heel falling right over sideways. At that point she was met by what looked like a kindly uncle and aunt. Uncle started proudly looking his niece up and down, starting at the top, and when Velma and I saw him suddenly spot Niece's very-high-and-hopelessly-tilted-outwards heels, his smiling face suddenly froze into a mixture of astonishment and embarrassment and his eyes remained popping out like organ-stops and rivited to the extraordinary shoes in shocked fascination. The niece had a very pretty, sweet face, but all she could do was to carry on wilting there under his gaze, blushing furiously in total embarrassment. Velma said 'If that's the awful humiliation that wearing high stilettos could bring to us, why don't we forget it right now?' I said 'Not on your nelly!' and dragged her firmly onwards. In advance, I had telephoned the modelling college and asked where their models obtained their wonderfully high heels. "Regent Shoes of course, in Wardour Street" they said. A brief taxi-ride later, I saw Regent Shoes for the first of many, many times. It was situated directly opposite the 'T' junction, facing into Gerrard Street (which has later become London's 'Chinatown'). In the left-hand window the first thing we saw was a placard 'LONDON'S HIGHEST HEELS!'. This was actually only a gimmick - an ordinary court shoe with a 2 or 3 foot long stiletto heel attached. Anyway it served to draw attention to the shop's vast display of the most amazing high heels. We couldn't wait to enter! More soon, Love Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (7) Posted by Lucy on June 8, 2003, 10:09:16 Thank you Patience for such a lovely and speedy compliment! On we go: When Velma and I arrived at London's celebrated Regent Shoes, our mouths dropped open in wonderment. The large windows and the interior displays consisted of the most dazzling selection of high heeled shoes of every height, colour, style and desciption. It was an Aladdin's cave beyond our widest dreams and made the handful of shoe shops in our country town look like total non-starters. We eagerly clicked over the pavement and into the shop, trying not to look too over-excited. We told the lady assistant that we had come up from Surrey at the recommendation of the modelling school. She had already shot a practiced glance at our own shoes and seemed quite impressed by the heel-heights that Velma and I were already wearing. "Ah yes, she said, the catwalk students' favourite model is our famous 'Alps' with the 4 3/4" (120mm) heel". She took us over to an entire display of 'Alps' in a whole range of different colours, and in a choice of patent or ordinary leather. The sheer feminine elegance of 'Alps' was almost indescribable! The uppers were a plain classic court (always my favourite style), very low-cut all the way around from heel to toe. The toe was pointed and the lines of the towering, needle-thin heelslooked amazing - almost hypnotic. Our attempt at sophisticated decorum totally collapsed - just looking at these dream shoes started us giggling like silly schoolgirls in sheer delight and excitement. We couldn't wait to try them on, and within moments size fives (UK) were brought out for me and size sixes for Velma. Trying 'Alps' for the first time remains just about the most memorable experience of my life. Inserting each foot into those sleek masterpieces felt like nothing else on earth. I was undergoing an instant transformation into twenty times the woman! Velma breathed an involuntary 'Oh my God!' and I realised that she was being overwhelmed by the same sensation. Simultaneously, holding on to the backs of our chairs, we stood up in our respective pairs. The thrill was electric! In fact this daily thrill has never left me, but that first moment in that heel-height remains very special to me. The difference in sensation between 110mm and 120mm heels was unbelievable! My insteps were thrust right up very close to the vertical. My feet, ankles and legs took on a whole new poise and every muscle in my body tingled as my entire posture found itself rippling and readjusting to those seriously high heels. Before we tried walking around the shop carpet in them, surprisingly Velma asked the assistant 'Do you have anything even higher?'. I thought this was a rather impertinent question, but the reply was 'Oh yes indeed madam, our specialist range starts at 5" and goes right upwards from there, but it is only available from our special private room through there for our esteemed connoisseurs'. I gazed longingly at the curtained doorway leading off from the side of the shop and vaguely wondered what one had to to do to qualify as an 'esteemed connoisseur'. Just at that very moment we saw one! A weedy little nervous man with thinning hair came darting into the shop, jumped out of his skin when he saw Velma and I looking at him, and furtively disappeared through the curtain. Moments later he reappeared clutching what looked like a shoebox in a plain brown paper wrapping. Acting like a cornered weasel, he edged towards the entrance and fled into the street! We turned our attention back to the stunning 'Alps' on our feet and gingerly tried walking in them. It was like tackling a whole new challenge and being in heaven at the same time. We both felt so teetery on those heels that Velma even got the jitters about buying them. They seemed very expensive to us - about £9 a pair which was then most of a week's wages for a lot of people. 'Nonsense' I said 'Just look in that big mirror and see how they transform us both'. Velma had to admit that they looked fantastic and made us look fantastic too, so despite a few ankle wobbles, we minced over to the cash desk holding our purses. At that point another 'Esteemed connoisseur' entered the shop. This one was large, confident, beaming and exuding cheerfulness to everyone. Velma said later that he looked like a professional comedian or entertainer. He wore a shimmering green suit and a loud colourful tie. Velma discreetly nodded down towards his shoes and they were a shiny silver lace-up style with built-up heels about 3" or 4" high. Having greeted us all he plunged through the curtain to the Inner Sanctum, and shortly afterwards came out wearing a pair of large strappy gold sandals with slimmer higher (5"?) heels. 'Great shoes you're wearing girls' he said to us, raising up his trouser-legs 'How do you like these?'. We were so astonished and taken-aback that we could only feebly mumble 'Very nice!' before he marched out and away into the thronged street as bold as brass. I immediately brought to mind the poor man up on Box Hill and remember thinking that the London Police must have been a lot more tolerant that the Surrey Police. Thank goodness that everyone is becoming more broadminded these days! Well, despite the unfamiliar new height, we bravely decided to wear our new 'Alps' (mine were black patent and Velma's were grey leather)throughout the trip home, and we got back tired, footsore but blissfully happy with our dream shoes and unforgettable memories of our London adventure. Velma asked me whether we dare wear our 'Alps' to the Academy in front of the formidable Miss Sheridan, but my mind was already racing on to thinking how exciting it would be to live and work in central London! More soon! Love Lucy.

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Lucy's Story #8 Posted by Lucy on June 14, 2003, 2:56:19 Hi again everyone! A special greeting to Puffer and Laser who've just joined the ever-growing gang of responders to my stories (now well over twenty of you!). It's very heartening to me to know how much interest has been aroused by my stories, and 'Yes'Patience, I certainly AM enjoying re-living all these high heel highlights - it reminds me just how much real enjoyment I've had from wearing high heels over the years (and counting!). Thank you also to Scuffy and Stu for their latest kind words. I'm flattered that several of you have asked if the site's moderators can save my entire story in Jenny's Stories section. As an alternative, if you would like to keep my episodes yourself(they will soon drop off the bottom of this message-board to be lost for all time), why not simply print them out on your printer, and then assemble the set in a folder? Well, to resume the story: On the way back from Regent shoes and our wonderful day in London, Velma and I kept on our fantastic new 4 3/4" stiletto-heeled 'Alps'all the way home. When we walked from the taxi into Victoria Station, the guard was about to blow his whistle for our Surrey train to depart, so we had to run the last forty yards up the platform. Our two pairs of steel heel-tips made a tremendous clicking and clacking on the platform and it seemed that every one of the countless people in the station paused to stare in fascination at these two seventeen-year-olds trying to run (very awkwardly!)in their new ultra-high stilettos. Somehow we just made it and tumbled into our compartment. Opposite to Velma and me sat a little girl and her mother. Throughout the journey, the girl couldn't take her eyes off our rapier-thin high heels,and she talked about them incessantly in a very loud, high-pitched voice that demanded everyone's attention of all dozen-or-so passengers in the compartment. "Mum, look at those ever-such high heels those ladies are wearing...How can they walk in them?...Why don't they tip over? ....Will I have to wear those things when I grow up?....You don't wear ones like that do you Mum! .... Mum, are you going to tell those ladies their shoes are very silly?....blah, blah, blather, blather, bleh, bleh. By this time, everyone in the compartment wass leaning forward to examine our 'silly' shoes in the minutest detail. For the next few minutes we felt utterly wretched, but when we got off at our town station, a young man who had been in our compartment cheered us up no end by saying shyly that the little brat deserved a hefty smack in the teeth, and that our 'smashing' shoes were by far the best thing he had seen in his entire life and he hoped we didn't mind him telling us! Did we MIND? We were instantly overjoyed and could have hugged him with glee. Leaving London and our town station behind us, Velma and I were now walking alone in empty streets for the first time, on the final stretch to our homes. With no-one looking, we then began really ENJOYING our new ultra-high-heel walking experience to the full. We giggled away as we tried first mincing little steps, then great long strides (which proved impossible), then doing deliberate exaggerated heel-wobbling (very treacherous in that height) in a fun imitation of Dorothy (Mummy's cleaning lady), until finally walking the last quarter-mile both doing a fun 'Catwalk Flip' of our stilettos to emulate those exotic models that we had seen at the modelling school. It was all so wonderful and exhilarating that neither of us noticed the pressure-pain in our toes that had been building up until we reached our homes. Of course, being brand new shoes, I hadn't yet put the papier mache in the shoes' pointed toes to stop my toes being rammed forward into them! Velma's shoes were also a little narrow for fer feet, so the next day packed the toe-points of Velma's pair and mine, and showed her the old shoe-repairers' trick of stuffing the interior with fresh, moist potato peelings until the leather is soft enough to be stretched by pressing it down on to the rounded top of a broom-handle. Of course,these days the potato peelings have been superseded by a shoe-stretching aerosol spray-can. As the commercial course went on, I became great friends with Velma, and in the Easter holidays we decided on a second trip to London. Velma had a new London boyfriend Mick who was an attendant at one of the big London art galleries. As we went click-clicking in to visit him at work, he pointed to a sign saying that stiletto heels must not damage the maple-wood floor and that rubber heel-covers must be fitted. Mick had a huge grin on his face as he offered to fit them to our shoes, the rubber ferrules pushing about an inch up over the stilleto heels. What we didn't know was that he was a shameless practical joker. He explained afterwards that he always got a fantastic kick seeing a visiting ladies teetering around the gallery on very high heels, and he could not resist making their heels even higher by slyly inserting a 1/2" dowel of wood into each heel cover before pushing them on the the shoes. Teetery ladies would teeter even more, being pitched even further forward than usual, and we found ourselves struggling round in the same way without realising what was really happening! When Mick finally proudly told us about his great prank, Velmas and I thought it was hilarous and brilliant, but sadly a few weeks later Mick got the sack because an American lady discovered what Mick was doing and got him the sack! After that he got a job in an Oxford Street shoe shop and had a super time persuading wavering girls to live dangerously and buy something nice and high! More Soon! Love, Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (9) Posted by Lucy on June 15, 2003, 11:55:03 Hi again everyone! Thank you Patience - you seem to be winning the Lucy's-most-regular-responder prize! I entirely agree with you that the majority of teenage girls of today (constantly slouching-around in nothing but jeans and the dreaded trainers) have simply no idea what they are missing through having no sense of GLAMOUR! My excitement of buying and wearing classic outfits and lovely smart skirts and the the ultimate thrill of putting-on and LIVING in a fabulous pair of four-to-five inch high stiletto heels must be utterly lost on all but a few of them. When I see groups of about half-a-dozen girls shuffling and dragging themselves along the pavement looking dejected, I feel so sad when I think just how they would have looked in 'my day' with inspiring, stylish very feminine clothes, click-click-clicking along in their high stilettos with their heads held high with the confidence that these wonderful outfits gave them all. Such is 'Progress'! Well, on with my story: I left you half-way through my and Velma's second day-trip to London, during the Easter holidays of our final year at the business academy. After leaving Mick working at the art gallery, we made our way (on foot this time!) to Regent Shoes for our second visit, chuckling merrily at Mick's make-everyone's-heels-half-an-inch higher trick that he had just played on us and all the other unsuspecting high-heeled ladies. With the summer coming, Velma was looking for some high-heeled sandals, and Mummy had given me some money with the suggestion that I should get some 'everyday' shoes. As we click-clicked up Charing Cross Road in our inevitable 4 3/4" 'Alps', a mother-and-teenage daughter sheepishly asked us 'Can you tell us where we can find your style of shoes?'. We gaily said 'We're going there ourselves, it's very close, come with us' and jauntily started doing a bit of Catwalk Flipping to emphasize our daringly high heels to them both during the last few hundred yards. So this time four of us descended on Regent Shoes, and for me entering the door for the second time was just as exciting as it had been at Christmas. Now all the summer stocks had been added to the usual stunning all-year lines. Velma soon uttered 'Eureka' because she found that a summer version of 'Alps' had appeared, with the same mesmerizing 120mm heel, but designed as a sexy sandal with a single low toe-bar and a single thin slingback strap. It was utterly summer-light and feminine! Within seconds she had settled for a pair of size sevens in a light caramel colour. Whilst this was going on, I attended to the mother-and-daughter. Without knowing which one needed shoes, I took them over to the usual fabulous display of 'Alps' courts in various colours and finishes. Their faces lit-up in excitement and they were soon well into things with a shop assistant. Just then another 'Esteemed Customer' emerged through the curtain from the special private appointments room. This time it was a woman! Her face, under a straight fringe of the most jet-black hair had the striking looks of ten Cleopatras, further emphasized by jet-black mascara and eyebrow make-up and the brightest red lipstick that Velma and I had ever seen. Her knee-length skirt was in vertical gold-mirror slats that sent flashes of light eveywhere, and looking down at her just-being-collected shoes, we couldn't believe it! Like her skirt, they were also in a mirror-gold and were higher-heeled courts than we have ever imagined were wearable! Having at that time had no direct experience of wearing anything more than 4 3/4", Velma and I found it difficult to estimate the exact height, but it must have been at least 6", maybe more! Anyway, the shoe was lifted so far up-and-forward that the incredibly high pencil heel was little more than an inch behind the vertically arched sole of the shoe. We were transfixed with fascination, waiting to see how she would possibly manage on the paving stones when she left the shop. In the event, all she did was to teeter about within the shop to view herself in the shop's big mirror beside us. She could only manage this by taking the tiniest mincing steps imaginable, but looked deliriously happy when she saw herself in those amazing heels. The four of us 'ordinary' shop customers became frozen in awe whilst this spectacle took place, and only resumed shopping once 'Cleopatra-times-ten' had disappeared back into the 'Inner Sanctum'to pay for her new shoes to be wrapped. Velma and I were then intrigued to see that both mother AND daughter were busy trying the 'Alps' courts, although they had come shopping in virtually flat clumpers. Mother was doing pretty well in hers, but daughter seemed totally inexperienced and began heel-wobbling violently from the moment she tried standing-up. Within a minute or two she burst into floods of tears! We went over to show our concern, and she wailed that she was 'Utterly useless' and that she had 'Been looking foward to her first pair of high heels for ages'. Mother said 'She's probably got weak ankles', but Velma and I tried to cheer her up by saying she out to start with some lower 3" or 3 1/2" heels and work upwards. We couldn't suggest high chunky heels because everything was purely stilettos in those days. It ended up with Mother purchasing a pair of 'Alps' for herself in dark bottle-green (they looked great!) and daughter finding nothing as Regent Shoes stocked less in the lower stuff than ordinary high-street shoe shops. As they left, I often wondered whether the daughter (we never did find out her name) had ever graduated up to the very high heels she longed to wear! I was the last to buy anything because I couldn't summon any enthusiasm to try-on anything that Mummy had called 'Everyday wear'. It suddenly hit my that because I wore high stilettos the the Academy every day, and out and about during weekends, that for me high stilettos WERE 'everyday wear'. I though Velma looked fantastic in her freshly-on 120mm stiletto slingbacks, so I brazenly spent Mummy's money on an identically-styled but white pair for myself, and thought I'd worry about Mummy's wrath later on. That afternoon, we stayed-on in London because Velma had arranged for us to meet Mick after he finished work for an early-evening meal together near Picadilly Circus.We filled-in the time shopping for a few summery tops and bits and pieces, whilst secretly admiring our great new summer stiletto-heeled slingbacks as they became reflected in all the shop windows. The only problem was, as my feet started snuggling further-down into the single toe-strap, my slingbacks became looser and kept creeping-down my own heels until they let go of my foot and I started having to pause every fifty yards to pull them back up again. After a while, Velma started having the same problem, but neither pair had a buckle to be able to shorten the strap, so our feet were stuck in fixed sized straps that were becoming too big. By the time we met Mick for dinner, we were having to stop and pull-up the straps every few paces. Mick (a self-confessed expert high-heel admirer) said he'd noticed that upwards of 50% of girl's slingbacks ended up getting trampled under their feet, freeing-up the shoes to flip-flop away merrily. 'Much, much sexier than trying to keep the straps in position' stated Mick. Well, on the way from the restaurant, Mick came with us to see us off on the train. Under his knowledgeable gaze, we dutifully tried negotiating the walk in our new stilettos with the slingback straps now down and dedundant. Velma and I agreed that these slingback versions had proved harder to control than the normal closed-court 'Alps', and the absence of anything to hold the heel made it even harder still. However the positive side was that the constant slap-slap-slapping sensation on the underside of our feet felt very sensuous indeed, and we began to notice that the spectacle of two girls both wearing ultra-high clicky stilettos and both flapping along with the heel-straps trodden-down was turning infinitly more male (and some female!) heads than when we had worn them conventionally when first leaving Regent Shoes. We were rapidly learning that when it comes to gently teasing the onlooker, buying ravishing shoes is only part of the secret, and how you wear them is the another! More soon, Love Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (10) Posted by Lucy on June 15, 2003, 23:31:52 Firstly a big 'Hi' to Mike, who has just tried to send me a picture of a possible 'Alps' shoe (see his message below)! Also my thanks to Spikesfan and Sinkem who have been talking about saving all of my instalments as one complete story. It's so nice to know that my little reminiscences are being appreciated by so many of you, and Patience, faithful Patience, you needn't thank me for writing it all down. It has been MORE than a pleasure doing so, because now I've not only got my current and ongoing high-heel-wearing to enjoy, but I've suddenly got all these memories flooding back as I write, giving me the double enjoyment of re-living all those hundreds of fun moments! For the whole thing we've actually got to thank FRED. It was Fred's message on this page on 21st May (see below - it's about to drop-off the bottom of the board and be lost) that first prompted me into starting to go down Memory Lane in my high stiletto heels and start writing about it. So for FRED and everyone since, on with my story: After that Easter Holiday, we started the final term of our course at the business acadamy. Many of the other girls were only finishing a one-year typing and secretarial course, but I was completing the much more comprehensive two-year course which also included business and administration skills, embracing elocution, deportment etc. of which I have spoken. Miss Sheridan assembled the entire year for a pep talk about our forthcoming exams, and also said that because we would soon find ourselves attending job interviews, the final term's training would include classes on successfully attending interviews. In these, great emphasis was placed on our dress and presentation. Hair had to be immaculately styled, nails manicured to perfection, makeup applied with taste and great precision, clothes (preferably skirt-suits) crisply styled and presented, and nylons and high-heeled shoes being a 'must' ("Although for perfect taste perhaps not quite as high as Lucy's and Velma's!" added Miss Edwards, out tutor). For some years after the Socond World War, it was impossible to get nylon stockings in the British shops, but the American soldiers still stationed in the U.K. would bring over marvellous stockings from the U.S.A. By the early 1960s, the American troops had more or less gone, but the odd American businessman (or even black marketeer!) could be prevailed upon to bring them across for us. We cherished those nylons like gold-dust, and dreaded laddering them which was a major tragedy and caused more than a few tears! Before putting-on our high heels, we would attach the nylons to the little knobs on our suspenders with little chrome-metal clips and then make sure that the black seam down the back of each leg was dead straight. With the silky feel of the nylon stockings on each foot, slipping into our high stilettos became an unforgettably slinky and sensuous sensation. When first standing-up in them, I liked to heel-wobble each shoe around for a few moments to snuggle my toes right down into them and to get the measure of each stiletto heel in relation to my foot and the point of balance. Then I was 'ready' to walk in them. Miss Edwards would check the straightness of our stocking-seams and would examine our shoes for the slightest blemish or speck of dirt. This was routinely followed by her request for Velma and I to "Look for something just slightly lower", but that was the one and only point raised on the course that Velma and I declined to observe. Nothing would have stopped us from our daily wearing of our 4 3/4" 'Alps'! The final term was shooting by, and one day after lessons the principal Miss Sheridan asked me into her office. I thought I must be in for a telling-off about something....maybe about starting to wear over-high heels to the Academy(?). Although Miss Sheridan was generally regarded as being something of a formidable battleaxe by the students, she beamed at me and said I had stood out to her throughout the course as being one of the brightest and most refreshing students that the Acadamy had ever had. She praised my rapid progress and said I deserved to do well in the coming examinations and tests. Then, quite unexpectedly she displayed a side of herself that I had never seen. She went all coy and embarrassed, and blushing furiously she said that because of having to keep up formal appearances as the principal, she had never felt able to dress in an adventurous manner like me or to have ever felt what it was like to wear really tight skirts or really high heels like mine. She blurted out 'Could you do me an awfully big favour and let me try-on those wonderful shoes of yours just for a few tiny seconds?'. I was totally taken aback, but I managed to say 'But of COURSE!' and slipped-my 'Alps' and passed them to her. It has been one of the saddest memories of my life that my size 5s(UK) were far too small for Miss Sheridan's size 7 1/2 feet and she could not squeeze into them at all. I would so dearly have loved to see Miss Sheridan's reaction to wearing REAL height for the very first time! Still, it was a very valuable lesson to me that even behind the sternest countenance a soft human heart can beat! I have always hated sitting exams, so I'll rapidly move past all that and on to the end-of-course Presentation Ceremony. The Acadamy held it's prize-giving and graduation day in the Town Hall. We all trooped-in with our parents (by now Mummy had forgiven me for spending the 'everyday shoes' money on my outrageous white trampled-slingback ultra-high stilettos) and sat down. After deep discussion, both Velma and I wore our Alps 120mm courts to the ceremony. Velma and I both passed with flying colours, in fact my marks were the highest ever achieved for the course, at which I was mightily relieved! When we were all seated in the floor of the hall, Miss Sheridan lead the teaching staff and Governors to their seats on the stage. Velma and I nudged each other simultaneously as we both spotted what Miss Sheridan was wearing. Never before had anyone seen her in anything higher than a 1" lace-up shoe, and suddenly her she was appearing on Presentation Day wearing a gleaming pair of patent leather 4" stiletto courts! I could swear that she shot a quick little beam in my direction before opening the proceedings. Although not as high as our 'Alps', she had really broken-out regarding footwear and looked all the happier for it, and I felt that it was mainly due to me! When Velma was called up for her presentation, she mounted the steps and promptly manage to get her 4 3/4" firmly stuck between two floorboards on the platform. The whole assemblage went into tucks of laughter and she had to leave the shoe behind and receive her award bobbing up and down from one heeled foot to one bare foot. Miss Sheridan joined in the laughter and even had the guts to wave her own newly stiletto-clad foot to the audience and say "Look ladies and gentlemen, it could just as easily have happened to me!". Soon afterwards I was called-up to receive my award, and I made an exaggerated point of circling around the bit of floor where Velma got stuck. Miss Sheridan kindly told the audience that I had achieved record marks an had "Breathed new life" into the Acadamy. She said that in recogntion of this, she was handing an extra little present to me that I must not unwrap until I get home! Mummy and Daddy said it was the "Proudest day of their lives", and all the way home the three of us were burning with impatience to see what was in Miss Sheridan's personal little parcel to me. No sooner were we inside the house than I tore-off the jolly wrapping, and inside was the most georgeous piece of antique silverware in the shape of a Victorian lady's high-heeled shoe. The high heel was 'waisted' Louis heel shape, the upper was in what is now called an 'Oxford' style, and the hollow part for the foor was filled with a pin cushion for sticking in pins and needles. It is about 4 1/2" long and still stands on my mantlepiece to this day as a highly cherished possession. Miss Sheridan's accompanying little handwritten note simply said "Thank you for more than just being an outstanding Student!" More Soon! Love Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (11) Posted by Lucy on June 17, 2003, 22:37:19 Hi Everyone! Thank you to Patience, Stu and Arno for their kind and well-considered comments, and to Scuffy for adding HIS graduation day account. Not far below on this forum I was bemoaning the sadness of many of today's young ladies shuffling about in jeans and trainers and missing-out on the thrill of smart skirts and glamorous high stiletto heels. It is even more incomprehensible to me when other girls like the ones in Scuffy's account actually go to the trouble of appearing in a georgeous ball gown, only to ruin the effect by standing in a pair of flat 2" thick sponge rubber flip flops. Thank goodness than Scuffy did at least report some others in high stilettos! On with episode 11: Have any of you been not just drunk, but horribly, frighteningly drunk? It has only happened to me three times in my entire life (never again!) and one such occasion was the Saturday after Presentation Day. A gang of the girls in my year decided to celebrate our successful completion at the Academy by holding a 'Hen Party' at a posh country hotel near the town. It was held in the 'Function Room' - a converted barn in the lovely floodlit grounds of the hotel, containing an open-plan bar, dining area and small dancefloor. The invitations had said 'Dress up to the Nines!' so I wore a body-hugging deep-purple long satin slit-dress with and my gleaming black patent 'Alps' 4 3/4" stiletto courts. We all started turning up in parent's cars or taxis, and Velma appeared in a very slinky red dress that I had not seen before and her grey 'Alps'. In fact, when all nineteen girls had arrived, I was pleased to see that every one of them had made the effort to turn up in stiletto heels and none were less than 3" high. The noise as all those pairs of steel-tipped heels crossed the wooden dancefloor to the bar was deafening, and we all rather formally ordered our pre-meal schooners of sherry. That soon got our tongues wagging, and began giving us an appetite for the three- course meal. But as this had still not been brought across from the main hotel, we all had another sherry or two. The meal was duly served, thoroughly enjoyed, and washed-down with liberal glasses of wine from the bottles on the tables. Normal conversation was impossibly with nineteen over-excited females giggling and yelling across the one great big table at each other. The desserts and coffees were accompanied by liqueuers (in many cases three or four!)and by this time we were all well away! There was no live band, just a radiogram in a wooden cabinet on which the barman offered to play 'Top twenty' records. Elvis, Tommy Steel and Cliff Richard had given way to the early Beatle hits, but bopping around to those soon became boring with no fellas to dance with. In fact, the only lively music that really got us going was the conga! We all formed into a conga snake and Marion led us around the function room a couple of times before disappearing outside into the grounds. It had been raining most of that week, so we all found our stilettos sinking right down into the lawn. 'Keep going' shrieked Marion, and nineteen fairly drunk graduates snaked over lawns, round-and-round the outside of the barn, our stilettos taking us through the children's sandpit and even through the paddling pool two or three times. We were much to squiffy to worry about our shoes and nylons! By the time the conga-line shimmied back into the function barn, the horrified barmen saw that our wonderful stiletto shoes were caked in mud, sand, leaves and dripping water everywhere. "You can't trail all that mess on to the carpet or the dancefloor" he barked, ushering back outside on to the patio area. 'Fair enough' said one of the gang 'It's a warm night, let's all sit out here and enjoy Miss Sheridan's present'(Miss Sheridan had very kindly sent us all a note wishing us well for the party and for our future careers, accompanied by three large magnums of champagne for good measure!). Twenty seriously-busy minutes later, one of the gang pointed at the hotel's floodlit putting green and said 'I'll bet Lucy a pound that she can't walk across that in those famous shoes of hers without sinking in'. Although feeling decidedly unsteady, I rose to the challenge and won the bet quite easily by controlling my 'Alps' and keeping all the weight on my toes as I walked. It goes without saying that this was followed by all eighteen of the others attempting the same challenge with varying degrees of success and failure. Funnily enough, quiet little Mary who had the lowest stilettos at about 3" found it the most difficult and was getting stuck right in at almost every step. 'I've got a brilliant idea' shouted Velma, 'Let's make this more fun by making it a proper Impossible-In-High-Heels Obstacle Course!'. Within moments, despite our drunken stupour, we had organised stepping-in-and-out-of-the-row-of-swimming-pool-lifebelts, followed by balancing-along-the-children's-see-saw, followed by RUNNING(!)-over-the-putting-green, followed by whizzing-down-the-horrendously-steep-concrete-ramp-without-heel-collapsing, followed by tightrope-walking-along-the-top-of-a-low-thin-wall to the final obstacle which was tip-toeing-over-the-inflated-swimming-pool-airbed-without-bursting-it. Although in an alcoholic haze, I remember the next few minutes as one of the funniest in my entire life. There were girls toppling sideways off the ramp and off the wall, others getting stuck again in the putting green, stilettos wobbling and buckling under people everywhere, heels slithering forwards and backwards along the see-saw, and Avril even teetered backwards into the swimming pool! Needless to say, the poor airbed was punctured by the very first stiletto heels to cross it, but everyone was so sozzled that they kept dutifully trampling across the burst remains anyway. Despite all the hardships and stiletto mishaps everyone was shrieking with laughter and merriment. The more ankles twisted and heels became scuffed the louder everyone hooted until we we all doubled-up and crying with laughter. Just then it all came to an abrupt halt when the Hotel manager came shooting towards us with a less-than-dignified "What the HELL do you think you're playing at? - Look at my beautiful putting green and that airbed and those flower beds - it's all utterly RUINED!". Although now totally paralytic, we somehow managed to have an instant whip-round to try to compensate him for the damage. After that the nineteen of us collected our coats and handbags and wobbled, teetered and squelched our way along the drive to the hotel car park. We were so drunk that even the best and most experienced of us heel-wearers were wobbling and lurching from side to side like total novices, and had to support each other round our waists. Even then more heels buckled and three or four victims toppled down on to the grass verge, still laughing helplessly. Many of the girls' shoes were so spoiled or heel-twisted that they were useless thereafter. Despite all that damage to our high heels, laddered stockings, and the compensation we had just had to to the manager, we all agreed that the fantastic evening had worth every penny, and Rita yelled "and a great excuse to buy some even higher replacement heels!" ....."Yeah, Great!" chorused the rest of us! More soon, Love Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (12) Posted by Lucy on July 5, 2003, 4:14:50 Hi Everyone! In the summer of 1963 I had successfully completed my business academy course in secretarial skills, business, administration and personal presentation. Graduation Day and our group's ensuing hen party had both come and gone, so I had to think about getting a job (preferably in the exciting heart of London!), but first it was the time for our summer holiday. Previously, being professional people, Mummy and Daddy had taken me on 'civilised' trips to the art galleries and museums of Venice, London or Amsterdam, or on walking holidays in Derbyshire or the Lake District. However, now nearly 19, I wanted to 'break away' and have a fun holiday with Velma and two other girl graduates from the Academy. The four of us asked if we could go to Little Canada Holiday Camp on the Isle of Wight together. My parents reluctantly agreed to let me have my first holiday away fronm them, but only when they learned that Margaret was well over 21 and would take responsibility for our foursome. Just before the holiday fortnight, my nineteenth birthday came around, and my parents had agreed to my request to pay for (yes, you've guessed it!) yet another pair of shoes for me (both my pairs of Alps were getting worn to death). For some time my mind had been going back and back to Regent Shoes private consultation room for 'Esteemed Connoisseurs'. The customers that I had seen didn't look particularly 'esteemed', but they had all emerged with even higher-heeled shoes than 'Alps'! On various nights, I had been having recurring dreams about acquiring their mega-high-heeled shoes! I telephoned Regent Shoes and was put through to Mr Adler, the managing director (no less!) said 'Yes, as long as you make an appointment with my ultra-high-heel specialist, of COURSE you can visit our special room!'. I whizzed up on the train, full of anticipation and this time passed through the curtain into the private holy of holies. What an amazing site! the specialist sales gentleman waved at a wonderland a shoes with no heels less than 5" and many going up to 6", 7" and 8". I blurted 'How on EARTH can anyone walk in those?'. 'Ah well' he said ' most of these, especially the highest ones, are seldom worn outside the bedroom'. I found myself saying 'What's the point of that, I like wearing my heels everywhere'. He replied 'Well, in that case even the 5" courts will be a challenge for your smallish feet. I advise against going any higher, at least for now'. With summer and the holiday camp in mind, I slipped my stocking feet out of my 4 3/4" black patent Alps and into their pair of white patent leather 5" courts (Debbie's on Jenny's site look very similar), tingling with anticipation. However, I was quite unprepared for for the new sensation. As I stood up, my insteps were strained right forward over my toes,my pelvis was thrust up into a new, protuding angle, and I felt AAAAaaah - indescribably sexy and (I'm ashamed to say) a 'wet' coming on. I could only manage small steps around the room, but looking in the mirror, the shoes had transformed me! Their toes were quite short, increasing the effect of my feet ands ankles rearing straight up from nowhere. The side view was particularly stunning, and then I tried rolling my ankles from side to side to enjoy the exagerrated 'throw' that the extra height gave to the heels. What an unparalleled experience! I felt myself becoming overwhelmed in a sort of delirium, and the salesman said 'Are you alright Madam? You're looking awfully flushed! In fact, he had to sit me down and get a glass-and-a-half of water for me - it was quite alarming for both of us! I was so embarrassed that I had paid for the shoes and carried them out of the shop before I actually remember having decided to buy them. I was so flustered that I had walked almost half-way from Wardour Street back to Victoria Station before I calmed down somewhat. But then, just after I had passed Buckingham Palace, the sheer magic and lure of the hypnotic new shoes started to pray on my mind again, and they seemed to be acting like a magnet from inside the box, telling me to put them on again! No sensation had ever been so compelling! OOooh!, I murmered, some force stopping me short in the street and making me tear the box open, put both white skyscapers on the paving stones (emptily swaying wildly from side-to-side) and rise unsteadily up into the two white new demons. I still don't know what possessed me to brave the streets of London in those unrehearsed ultra-high stilettos, but somehow I made it from there all the way to Victoria Station in a euphoric trance. I still have vague momories of trying very hard to walk without my knees and bottom sticking out and of trying not to heel-wobble with rapidly-tiring ankles, and hearing two shopkeeps say "How the dickens can todays' young ladies hope to walk in those!". Somehow I reached the station and collapsed into my train compartment tired but ecstatically happy. I looked down at them on my feet throughout the journey home, twisting them this way and that to view the heels from the side, only just coming out of my dream-state and realising that they were really, really mine! As the train ground to a halt at my town, I had to set off in them again and make my way up the platform to the station's taxi rank. Alas! no taxis there, and furthermore I hadn't enough money left in my purse to have been able to pay for one (those ultra-high shoes were all hand-made and commensuraterly expensive). As I stood there trying to decide what to do, I swayed both shoes left and right on the very high stiletto heels to ease my stiffening ankles, but I decided that there was no alternative and I had to walk the mile from the station to my home! How I managed that, I'll never know! Despite all my high-heel training at the Academy, and having worn my 'Alps' daily for months on end, the strain of enduring an entire mile in those brand-new-and-stiff 5" patent leather heels would have to be experienced to be believed. Half of me was suffering burning balls of the feet due to the exaggerated pressure thrown on to them, my ankles had been toiling away whilst depressed to a new ultra-steep angle, and my knees and back were both aching with the postural re-adjustments. However, the other half of me was still elated and thrilled at the thought of having purchased my best-ever oh-so-stupendous high heels, and it was this euphoria that bore me on and got me home still unbeaten and still wearing the 5" heels. "Great!" I thought, "If I can manage an ordeal like that, I can certainly manage to wear them on holiday next week at the Little Canada Holiday Camp!". More Soon! Love Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (13a) Posted by Lucy on July 7, 2003, 23:02:13 Hi Patience, thanks for the nice message! And Hi everyone else! Can I please just take this moment to thank the OVERWHELMING and growing host of people who have taken the trouble to respond to my first twelve stories, and not an unkind word from anybody! Without your enthusiastic feed-back, probably I would have petered-out after the first instalment or two, whereas as it is, it has been most encouraging, flattering and rewarding to a still keen 58 (nearly 59!) year old heel-loving girl. It has made my many years of ultra-high heel-wearing doubly worthwhile, so THANK YOU EVERYONE! On to instalment No. 13a: Having managed to somehow teeter the final mile home in those brand-new stunningly lovely but (by this time in the evening) agonisingly painful white patent 5" stilettos, I had been longing for the wonderful moment when I could collapse through the front door and kick-off my amazing shoes for the night. NOT TO BE! Entering the house I found that Mummy and Daddy were entertaining three other couples (business associates) for the evening. Instantly Mummy shot a glance down at my new ultra-high heels and one look at the disapproving look on her face told me that this time she thought I had transgressed beyond the realms of even her own high-heel taste into the undesirable extremes of "too high and naughty". However, re-composing her demeanour, she introduced me to everyone as her daughter, and visibly relaxed when all six guests uninimously complimented me not only on my lovely choice of stylish clothes, but also on "Those wonderfully eye-catching modern shoes!". Daddy was standing in the background, but he could not stop his own eyes coming out on stalks and staring at my shoes with "Impressed" written all over his face. Years later, Mummy confided in my that when they were courting, Daddy had confessed himself to be a raving high-heel fanatic and that might have explained why she spent so much time in 4"+ heels! The things we learn about our staid and respectable parents! Whilst the guests' praise of my 5" heels was a great relief, it presented the problem that I could hardly proceed to kick them straight off there and then, so I felt it only polite to stand(!) there for as further half-hour socialising with my feet in even GREATER agony! Both feet were on fire like a raging inferno with the toe-pressure, so as I convivialised and fraternised, I tried surruptitiously shifting my body-weight from one foot to the other, also tilting each toe up alternately, tilting the mega-heels as far to each side and back as I dare, rolling my ankles around and trying to seek any relief I could. However, I was suddenly concious that all four men had become paralysed with fascination and were sneakily peeking at all my shoe antics with unseemly interest. Mummy looked horrified and shot my a stern 'Stop that teasing shoe-play!' glare, so for the rest of the socialising and ingratiating I simply had to stand in utterly static heels (that now felt about 9" high and rising!) and suffer the most excruciating agonies I had ever endured in my life! We four Business Academy graduates (Velma, Rita, Me and Margaret (in charge of our foursome being the only girl over 21) had booked a fortnight's fun holiday on the Isle of Wight at Pontin's holiday camp "Little Canada". Together we took the train to Portsmouth Harbour, crossed the Solent on the ferry to Ryde Pier and took a taxi to the holiday camp just inside the mouth of Wootton Creek. "Little Canada" was so-called because all the chalets were built like Canadian log cabins, and in addition to the usual swimming pool, ballroom, sports field etc. there was an impressive totem pole in the middle of the site which was regularly danced-around by dozens of the campers dressed-up as Red Indians. Margaret had travelled down in her usual frumpy 2" ('sawn-off-stiletto-stumps') heels, but the rest of us stepped out of the taxi in our high 4 3/4" 'Alps' stilettos, expecting to create quite an impressive arrival. Not a bit of it! Immediately we learned that ALL holiday camp females (campers, staff and entertainers alike) seemed to LIVE in stilettos. They were everywhere! Has anyone got any old photographs of a good old typical British holiday camp and its 'campers'? The four of us shared one of the larger log cabins and started settling-in. I had kept my new 5" white stiletto courts a secret until then, but as I lovingly unpacked one and then the other, the other three girls cried 'WOW!'. Being size 5, they were far to small for Velma and Margaret to try on, but before I could blink, Rita (size 4 1/2) was putting them on. Despite a momentary look of alarm as the sheer height of the heels took her by surprise, she was off out of the cabin and clack-clack-clacking around the entire campsite in them with her knees thrust forward and the most gigantic grin on her face! It's funny, but whenever high heels fit, they go click, click, click, and whenever they are too big and flop on and off your feet they go clack, clack, clack! We soon discovered that Little Canada's beaches were not sandy. The Wootton Creek side was thick mud and round the headland the seaward beach was sharp stones and broken sea-shells. Undaunted, I donned my swimming cozzy and stupidly criss-crossed the beach barefooted numerous times on my way in out out of the sea. I knew it was feeling painful, but only too late I realised that the soles of my feet were being lacerated, punctured and cut to ribbons! Added to that, they had still not fully recovered from my Buckingham Palace-to-home-in-5"-heels-marathon, and tomorrow I had been intending to wear those same shiny white 5" heels as my secret weapon to win the camp's "Miss High Heels" Contest! Little Canada (and probably all the other holiday camps) held lots of such competitions - "Miss Little Canada" beauty contest, "Mr Knobbly Knees" contest, "Glamorous Grandmother" contest, and in the busy season they tacked-on other events like "Mr Muscle-Man" and "Miss High Heels". The four of decided not to risk possible failure in the main beauty contest because the entire camp seemed full of Marilyn Monroes, Sabrinas, Diana Dors and Sophia Lorens. However, we agreed that we stood a much better chance of winning "Miss High Heels" because between us, our cabin contained a total of 2 pairs of 4" heels, 3 pairs of 4 3/8" (110mm) heels, 3 pairs of 4 3/4" (120mm) heels and my one pair of 5" heels! "I know" cried Rita "It's a shame to leave Margaret out just because she doesn't have any heels over 2". Velma, as you are going to compete in your favourite slingback 'Alps', why don't you offer to lend your other pair of 'Alps' courts to Margaret so that she can join in? In fact, Margaret was just one of those unfortunate girls who was just not really a 'high-heely-person' but she agreed to enter into the spirit of the thing, and very apprehensively stood up in Velma's spare pair of 4 3/4" stilettos. They fitted her feet well enough to wear for a short contest, but they looked awfully incongruous on poor gangly Margaret as she stood there with her unaccustomed ankles trembling slightly. Anyway, full marks to her for being a good sport! Over the camp's loudspeakers (which were apparently the curse of the neighbouring village of Wootton) the head entertainer's voice thundered out that all those girls wishing to enter the "Miss High Heels" contest should wear their bathing costumes and their very, very best high heels and should line-up around the open-air swimming pool at 3 pm that afternoon! (Continued directly in Instalment 13b) Love, Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (13b) Posted by Lucy on July 8, 2003, 1:40:26 As the appointed hour for the "Miss High Heels" contest approached, the four of us sallied forth from our cabin duly wearing our very best and skimpiest swimsuits and highest heels, and made our way along the rather tricky downhill path to the swimming pool area. Disaster of Disasters! My cut and blistered feet were just about unbearable in my new shiny white 5" stiletto 'secret weapons'. I could barely hobble in them, let alone parade in true 'Beauty queen' style! Margaret was walking even more erratically than me, if that was possible. A flattie-wearer through and through, her attempt at walking down a narrow downhill path in Velma's 4 3/4" stilettos beggered belief! Luckily she had the pluck to laugh at her own hopeless efforts otherwise it would have been embarrassingly sad! Rita looked OK in her 4 3/4" stiletto 'Alps' courts except for her one incurable fault of knees-sticking-forwards, and due to my stupid self-inflicted beach injuries, the only one who looked truly fantastic was Velma in her 'Alps'slingbacks (with the slingback straps properly pulled-up behind her feet for a change!). Arriving at the swimming pool we gasped in disbelief. Instead of joing a handful of high-heel contestants, there seemed to be HUNDREDS of high-heeled girls crowding and jostling about ten-deep right around the pool! In fact looking at the surrounding lawn, the audience seemed to consist entirely of fellas, meaning that almost every female camper from 10 to 90 owned a cozzy and a pair of stilettos and hoped to win "Miss High Heels"! At 3pm sharp the head entertainer blew a referee's whistle to quell all our chatter, but looked totally bemused and nonplussed at the sheer 'cast of thousands'. He then brightened with a good idea and said over the loudspeaker "OK ladies, that was Heat Number 1, and all those in timid heels of 3" or less are struck-off! Eliminated! FAILED!" At this, hoards and hoards of failed heel-wearers sulkily joined their menfolk and became mere spectators. Even then, about 70 of us remained around the pool. "Still too many" I heard him mutter "Right!" he bawled "We are now looking at Heat 2 and all heels under 4" are axed, kaput, FINITO!", so this time quite a few girls in pretty nice heels were eradicated and had to sit and watch. At this point, the ever effusive Rita shouted out "Just a minute! What are you judging us on? Surely it's not just heel-height alone?". "Well" said the entertainer "Me and the other judges will judge it 50% on the most smashing pair of high heels and 50% on the most smashing way that you parade in them!". "Fair enough!" we all agreed. There were now only about 30 or 40 of us left - the 4" and over mega-heelers, and it still included our foursome! This time it got much tougher and each of us was asked to parade singly right around the perimeter of the swimming pool. Poor Margaret's amateurish attempts now became all too apparent, and her attempts to tame her borrowed 4 3/4" heels reminded me of a rodeo cowboy getting thrown in all directions by an irate bucking- broncho. Having sheepishly teetered half-way around, the inevitable happened and she suffered the ultimate ignomony of allowing her left heel to collapse completely outwards! "INSTANT DISQUALIFICATION!" barked the judge "OUT! ..... OFF! ...... NEXT!" (Instalment 13c follows directly) Love, Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (13c) Posted by Lucy on July 8, 2003, 2:56:22 As the final heat of the "Miss High Heels" continued, I was conscious of hobbling very badly on my excruciatingly beach-lacerated feet. Nevertheless, the judges seemed to pass me, but eliminated quite a few other girls individually (including Rita) for very bent knees, slouching postures etc. and others for the sin of wearing the least-exciting of the remaining pairs of high-heeled shoes. Miraculously, Velma and I both survived into the last twelve for the Grand Final which was to be held in the Main Ballroom that night! "Well, they've got to keep you in Lucy, however painfully you hobble!" said Velma "Because you've got the highest, best and most stunning high heels in the entire competition!" I smiled hopefully, but actually it turned out not to be the case by any means! The entertainments organiser announced that they had actually only selected 11 of us for the Grand final at 9 pm that night, because the twelfth person was "A very strong contestant who had been unable to participate in the heats but had been allowed into the final at the Judges' discretion". The eleven of us (still in our highest of heels)dutifully click-clicked back to our cabins, and later on after the evening meal in the enormous canteen, re-donned our best swim-suits and highest heels and click-clicked to to stage dressing-room shortly before 9 pm, as instructed. At that point in walked Finalist Number 12 - the most beautiful girl any of us had ever seen in our lives! Velma and I instantly recognised her as none other than the self-same 'Cleopatra' that was one of the "Esteemed customers" collecting her ultra-high-heels from Regent Shoes the previous year! She immediately flashed a dazzling smile of recognition at Velma and me, and obviously remembered our nervously trying-on our pairs of 'Alps' that day. As the twelfth finalist for "Miss High Heels", she was dressed to kill! Our ordinary 'holiday' swimsuits were put to shame by her ravishing show-biz costume - a specially-designed stage version in fine satin with thousands of flashing silver sequins covering the exterior. Her freshly coiffeured jet-black hair was straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster, and the dramatic dead straight fringe had been retained above her black eyebrows and emerald-green eyes. But her SHOES! They were Regent Shoes' low-cut plain courts with towering needle-thin 6" stiletto heels and the overall surface was in a dazzling silver-mirror finish to match the flashing silver swim-suit. The extreme height of the heels showed "Cleopatra's" superb legs off to perfection (not the slightest knee-bend being detectable) and the rest of us stood in absolute awe, feeling so frumpy by comparison that we might as well have come straight from the vicar's tea-party! Well, within moments the Grand Final began on the stage in front of the packed audience of hundreds and to the accompaniment of the Little Canada Band which played raunchy rock and jazz tunes(including "Put on Your High Heel Sneakers"!)as we each paraded and teetered back and forth across the stage. As soon as we saw 'Cleopatra', Velma and I realised that it was 'No contest', but nevertheless we both tried to put on our best show when our turns came. We both 'Catwalk-flipped' away like mad in our stilettos(or 'Catwalk-hobbled in my case!) and tried to adopt glamorous smiles and poses, and were very bucked when we each received a great mass of cheers from all the fellas in the audience and thunderous applause which drowned the band! However, 'Cleopatra' made her dramatic entrance last, and predictably the entire hall erupted in the most deafening and almighty ROAR UPON ROAR of approval, plus hundreds of ear-piercing whistles, pounding-of-feet on the floor and hammering of fists on all the tables. I've never heard such a deafening commotion! Needless to say, 'Cleopatra' walked off with first prize, and she certainly deserved it! (She told us afterwards that she made a bit of a career of going around dozens of beauty contests and seeing how much prize-money she could win, but she had done the high-heel contest 'Just as an extra!'). Velma was delighted to be awarded second prize, but I ended up not winning anything at all, only coming fourth. The judges verdict was "A smashing pair of high heels, the second-best in the contest, but she's got to learn to walk properly in them". Oh well, you can't expect to walk barefoot across stony beaches AND win high heel contests I suppose! So, from the fourth-place contestant for Little Canada's Miss High Heels, 1963, Bye Bye for now! More soon! Love, Lucy

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Lucy's Story (14) Posted by Lucy on July 10, 2003, 4:19:41 Whilst still at Little Canada Holiday Camp, we four girls continued to have a great time, despite Margaret's ankle having been rather badly sprained when she turned Velma's 4 3/4" 'Alps' heel outwards when competing in "Miss High Heels". As a nice little sequel to "Miss High Heels", we were quite touched by the surprisingly large number of girls (mostly teenagers by quite a few mums who had been eliminated for too-low heels) who shyly came up to us during the rest of our stay to ask us four where we had got such wonderfully high stiletto heels! Naturally, we sang the praises of Regent Shoes of London's Wardour Street, saying that the winner ('Cleopatra') also got her various pairs of incredible 6" heels from their 'Special appointments room". One pretty 3" heel-wearing girl called Jessy visited our cabin and nervously said she was going in for the main "Miss Little Canada Beauty Contest" in the ballroom on Friday night, and would I mind awfully if she asked to borrow my amazing white 5" stiletto heels just for the contest? I explained that our foursome was not entering, so of COURSE she could, if they fitted her. She grinned excitedly and tried them on. The fit was fine, but she was quite unprepared for the whole change in foot-angle and posture between 3" and 5" heels. "God, I'd no idea they'd feel nearly so high and precarious" she breathed, holding on the door frame. We all said encouragingly she looked smashing and twice the girl, which she really did! Before Friday's contest, she duly came and collected my beloved new shoes. "Listen" I said, giving her the benefit of my own experience "If those 5" stilettos heels feel too high for you as you walk out on to the stage, DON'T let them collapse outwards otherwise you'll sprain your ankle just like Margaret did. If anything, place your body weight just to the inside of centre and you'll look elegant and feel safer". After the evening meal, in good time for the contest, our foursome bagged a table near the stage and ordered our the usual tipples favoured by young ladies in those days - Babychams or Cherry Bs. The band struck up with 'This Could be The Start of Something Big!' and the beauty contest commenced. Again, all the contestants were in swimsuits and high heels, but now the judging was focussed on their beauty rather than on their high-heeled shoes, most of which were the same 3" to 4" stilettos that we had already seen around the swimming pool. Some of the contestants looked a bit too much like 'brassy barmaid' types to us, but as with "Miss high heels", each was greeted by thunderous cheers and applause by all the hundreds of fellas in the audience. In due course young Jessy did her circuit of the stage. She had applied her make-up in a very good and striking way to enhance the pretty innocence of her face and her hair and royal blue swimsuit looked really lovely as well. Whoops! we all said when we caught sight my borrowed shoes. Her untrained feet were leaning inwards on the heels rather more than the tiny tilt that I had advised, and as she very gingerely minced round the stage she was hesitatingly looking down at them, rather than flashing dazzling smiles at the judges and audience. We needn't have worried! The audience went WILD upon seeing this lovely young apparition in royal blue swimwear and teetery white 5" heels, and she got by far the most thunderous set of cheers, stamps and table-hammerings so far. Having loaned her my best high heels, I felt a sort of motherly pride in her, and beamed at her success. Four or five more contestants followed, and then as before, into the spotlight came 'Cleopatra'. Gone were the gold and the silver outfits that we had seen on the two previous occasions. Now she wore the most sensational 'beauty queen' bathing costume that was so high-cut on the leg that her superb thighs were revealed right up above the hip on each side, and similarly low-cut around the arms and neck. This time the entire costume was in sparling emerald green sequins to match her eyes, with a jet-black trim to match her hair and her amazing shoes. These were in the shiniest black patent leather with very low cut uppers showing a hint of toe-cleavage the very tinnest pencil-line of emerald green trim running right around the top edge of the shoes. Her heels were again 6" high and needle-thin! She wore them beautifully without a hint of a wobble, with lovely straight, sheer legs and without seeming to mince or teeter in the slightest! 'Cleopatra's' sheer beauty and presentation, charisma and stage-presence were all such that she had the effect of sweeping everything before her wherever she went. The entire hall erupted! I thought the din would never die down! Needless to say 'Cleopatra' won the contest, and a handsome prize, but pretty young Jessy (with the dubious help of my 5" heels) came a well-deserved second place and received her prize (her first ever) blushing very sweetly. Immediately after the contest, she came scampering out of the dressing-room and towards our table in bare feet, carrying my 5" heels back to me. "Thank you SO much Lucy" she said "It was wonderful being able to borrow such wonderful shoes, but their height made my realise that I'll have to get some of my own and practice an awful lot in them before I dare appear like that again -I only just made it round the stage!". "You don't want to borrow 'Cleopatra's' 6-inch sensations just yet then!" we all joked as we bought her a congratulatory Babycham. That holiday was such fun and and a real escape from the realities of life after all our hard studying at the Academy, but it would soon be time to return home and start persuing my ambition of seriously looking for a good job in exciting central London. 'Should I be thinking about a buying a business suit and appropriate high heels for the necessary interviews?' I was already wondering to myself. More Soon! Love, Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (15) Posted by Lucy on July 15, 2003, 22:57:24 Hi everyone! I am delighted that Spikesfan says he will carry-out his kind offer of putting my full story (yes, he says saved all of my instalments) on MegaForums to be permanently saved! Thank you to SpikesFan and to everyone else who has posted saying that my full story should be saved! Well, here is instalment 15: My life had now reached a major turning-point. School and the Business Academy were now both behind me, and I'd had my two bits of post-graduation fun with the hen party and the holiday to 'Little Canada' and its high-heel contest!. Now it was time to get serious and start looking for a job, preferably in business to reflect my training, and preferably in London because I couldn't think of anywhere more exciting to work and live! Velma had exactly the same ambition, so we made a military campaign of scouring all the job vacancy advertisements, and arranged a series of appointments with London firms, spread over a single Monday-to-Friday week. We then booked ahead to stay for the same period at a bed-and-breakfast hotel in Sussex Gardens, Edgware Road, to use as our base. Miss Sheridan and Miss Edwards from the Academy had instilled in us the importance of disciplined 'business dress' for the interviews. Following their advice, I had bought especially a light grey business suite with a stylish jacket and a very tasteful just-below-the-knee slim-line skirt. under the jacket I wore a white blouse with a slightly frilly collar and a black velvet 'Wyatt Earp' bootlace tie. My outfit was completed with sheer nylon stockings and a pair of specially-purchased black patent court shoes with 4" stiletto heels. "Never wear anything higher than 4" in business" we had been trained. I had even got a new style of glasses for the interviews, abandonning the by-now-hackneyed coloured 'upswept wings' frames and keeping well ahead of the the fashion trend by choosing a pair of striking jet-black frames that looked very 'secretarial and businesslike' whilst adding a certain power to my facial features. However, as soon as I tried-on the full outfit to judge the overall effect, I was unhappy with the 4" high heels. Both the feel of them on my feet and the look in the mirror were both such a 'come-down' after having got used to 'living' in my 4 3/4" Alps for so long. Velma thought exactly the same about her shoes, and admitted to me that she had completely ignored the advice about nothing over 4", and had decided to buy a brand new further pair of 'Alps' courts for the forthcoming interviews and I grinned wickedly and said I would join her and do the same! Thus it was back yet again to Regent Shoes, wearing our new business suits to judge the full effect properly. Style-wise with our ultra-smart suits, there was immediately no doubt whatsoever about the right colour. In both cases the simple classic effect of shiny black patent leather won all hands down! They matched my new black-framed glasses (anticipating the Nana Muscoura(?) and Michael Cain spectacles fashion) and we also both bought neat little black patent 'wallet' handbags to match the shoes. "The overall effect is quite, quite stunning because of its striking simplicity" said the shop assistant as she took our money. We found she was right, because as we click-click-clicked away from Regent Shoes together, we got far more admiring looks (yes, and certainly more wolf-whistles) in our new smart high-heels and business suits than we had in our colourful social dresses! We grinned at each other and felt like a million dollars! We only hoped that our various interviewers would be similarly impressed and would not feel that we had overdone our heel-heights. "Still" I thought silently to myself, "I've got to be me, and nothing lower than my beloved 4 3/4" 'Alps' suits me or my personality. They've got to take Lucy as she really is (and as she's really going to be) for any job to work!". More soon, Love Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (16) Posted by Lucy on July 20, 2003, 21:51:27 Hi Everyone! I must stress to you all how grateful I am to Spikesfan for all his trouble and computer wizardry (well beyond my capabilities!) in copying ALL of my instalments (1 to 15) on to MegaForums where, unlike this message-board, they will remain intact and preserved for the future. Thank you VERY much Spikesfan! In the 24 hours since then, I see that several kind replies have started appearing. However as the author of these autobiographical stories, I must take strong issue with "Jo" for suggesting that my stories appeared somewhere else on the Net about two years ago. That is altogether wrong and misleading because I only went on the Net in the Spring of this year, 2003 and started writing all of the instalments on Jenny's High Heel Forum For Girls after someone mentioned Regent Shoes of London and I posted that I bought lots of lovely ultra-high-heels there in the 1960s. Fred replied asking me for details in May 2003, so in the process of answering him, that's how my stories began, and I'm still writing them for Jenny's forum (with SpikesFan kindly copying them from thereon to MegaForums), hence here is instalment No. 16 (written today, Sunday 20th July 2003!): Having made every preparation for a whole week of job interviews, Velma and myself had travelled up on the Sunday morning to intall ourselves at our bed-and-breakfast hotel in Sussex Gardens. We had time that day to "break in" our new pairs of 'Alps' 4 3/4" high heels be strolling down the Edgware Road to the edge of Hyde Park where artists had their paintings on display. One pavement artist looked up from kneeling at his work and did a double-take at TWO of the highest pairs of stilettos he said he'd ever seen. "Golly! - hold it right there!" he commanded, and insisted that we didn't move a muscle until he had finished a wonderful coloured-chalk picture of our two pairs of legs and shoes from the skirt downwards. I suspect that he might have exaggerated our heel-heights a bit to make them look even higher still, but I wish that we had a camera handy to have been able to photograph that lovely pavement picture! The following morning, we were up with the lark to ready ourselves for the interviews. before putting on my smart new business suit, I scraped my long, straight dark brown hair right back into a tight-coiled high bun (which Mummy said always accentuated my long neck and high cheekbones) and applied my make-up with extra-special care. I wanted to appear 'determined and business-like', so I accentuated my eyelashes and eyebrows by before putting-on my new black framed 'secretarial' glasses, and chose a lipstick that was just a fraction on the pale side of medium-red. Velma worked equally hard on her appearance and looked fabulous, and soon it was time to put on our stockings, business suits etc. and to insert our feet into our latest new 'Alps' high stiletto heeled shoes. Our paths would have to diverge to different parts of London for our own particular interviews. We both hoped to get secretarial jobs, the difference being that I hoped I would eventually work my way up into a managerial position, whereas Velma preferred the notion of staying as a secretary without the added pressures and responsibilities. After both consuming the hotel's "Full English breakfast" (naughty but nice!), we set out to go at least as far as the Edgware Road Underground station, but before that disaster struck. I suffered the stiletto heel-wearer's worst nightmare of the left heel going down into an iron grating. "Oh No!", I cried, "I haven't even attended a single interview yet, and my lovely special shoes are ruined". The patent-leather surface of the stiletto heel was ripped and tattered from top to bottom! I had to tell Velma to go on without me, and I still had time to return to the hotel for my 'original' interview shoes with the lower 4" heels. The hotel receptionist was friendly and sympathetic and said "Don't give up on those WONDERFUL shoes with the damaged heel - drop them off by Paddingtom station where there's a marvellous little shoe-repair man". I did that on the way past, the repairer saying he could re-cover the heel in thin black patent leather in time for tomorrow. Great!, so I would only have to put-up with wearing my (comparatively dowdy) 4" stilettos for the Monday interviews. The trouble was, by coming down to 4" heels, I didn't really feel DRESSED! In the event, it was probably a good thing that my Monday heels weren't any higher, because one of the interviews was with a (then newfangled) double-glazing firm in Fulham and the interviewer was a dreadful old lecher! He was very fat and sweaty with repulsive big brown eyes that leered continuously at my breasts, thighs and high heels. I couldn't really concentrate on what I was saying at the interview, but I suppose it didn't matter in the least, because neither could he! At the conclusion, I couldn't get out of the place quickly enough, having the feeling that if my heels had been any higher, or the skirt on my business suit any shorter, he might have been all over me! Not a good start to the week by any mean, but my two other interviews on the Monday went fairly well although both firms looked insignificant and uninspiring. Perhaps Tuesday would hold better things, and perhaps my repaired 'Alps' with their lovely high heels would bring me better luck! Love, Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (17) Posted by Lucy on July 20, 2003, 23:37:36 On the Tuesday morning of our interview week, Lucy and I again sallied forth from the hotel and called in at the Paddington shoe repairer's. He had been as good as his word and was a real sweetie! The lofty heel of my 'Alps' looked as good as new with the replaced leather finish, and I was so grateful that I gave him a good tip whilst working my toes down into my beautiful pair of 'Alps' again. I felt ready for action once more! I won't bore you by recounting each of the various interviews during that week, except to say that it resulted in my getting and excellent job! I visited the Holborn headquarters of a prestigious firm of estate agents with branches in various parts of Greater London. Upon entering their large foyer, I click-click-clicked my way across a shiny marble floor, the heel-noise echoing back from the marble-lined walls. I was greeted by an elegant receptionist who cast an approving look at my crisply-tailored business suite, but appeared to raise an eyebrow at the height of my pristine 4 3/4" heels (I noticed that hers were only about 3" high). Just as I moved forward to shake her hand, my new shiny-leather-soled shoes skidded on the mirror-like marble floor and I almost fell completely flat, just managing to save myself against her reception desk. "Oh dear", she said "That sort of thing will happen if you are wearing those impossibly high heels for the first time!". I choked back the urge to respond that I'd now been wearing that height day-in and day-out for about two years, and it was only her skid-pan floor that caused the problem, and instead I simply smiled and blushed. At this interview I was seen by none other than the overall managing director himself, the very epitome of an English gentleman of the old school. We were still in the days when any self-respecting 'city gent' wore a pin-stripe suite and commuted with furled umbrella and bowler hat. As I entered his office (remembering the Academy's training in "Office entering"), he greeted my with the utmost courtesy and we had by far ther most cordial and civilised interview of my entire week. Somehow, I immediately felt 'at home'. Having scrutinised my graduation file (Miss Sheridan had done me really proud!) and asked me a number of pertinent questions in a most civilised manner, he looked me up-and-down and said "You'll do Lucille - I like the cut of your jib! And furthermore, I'm not going to offer you the secretarial job for which you applied. No, you not only have higher qualifications than that but you speak extremely well" (my Surrey accent must have helped!) "And your whole presentation is one of impressive style and elegance. I wish that even a quarter of our applicants took that much trouble with their hair, dress and shoes, and your whole bearing and poise is befitting of someone destined for a managerial career, so I'm offering you a starting position in junior management.". Exactly what I had set my heart on! I was speechless with joy, and to cap it all, that evening Velma announced that she had found a super secretarial post. Our dreams of living and working in exciting central London were coming true! I think the new black patent 'Alps' high stilettos HAD brought me luck, and neither of us could wait to move up to London (whilst still being able to visit our parents very easily) and start leading adult lives with the employment, interests and fashions (and amazing shoes!) that no-where else in the the country except London had to offer! Love, Lucy

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Lucy's Story (Eighteen) Posted by Lucy on July 25, 2003, 23:51:27 Hi Everyone! I am writing this instalment (18) on 25th July 2003 and must again thank Spikesfan who has kindly copied all my prevous instalments from my posting site (Jenny's Forum) on to MegaForums for permanent preservation. Also my thanks to Heelfan for joining Spikesfan in defending me against a couple of MegaForums posters who made the erroneous suggestion that my stories might have appeared two years ago! As their author, I can categorically say they did not - they are fresh in recent weeks and still and ongoing! Thanks also to Stu, who replied on Jenny's Forum that ladies' high heels and smart dress can add a dignity and a positive contribution to the workplace. Stu, I entirely agree with you. My successful interview (Instalment 17) and subsequent experience in the business world quickly taught me something very significant about ultra-high heels: THEY ACCENTUATE THE MESSAGE OF WHATEVER CLOTHES YOU ARE WEARING! For example, if a woman wears tarty, blousy tops and skirts, her high heels immediately emphasise her tarty, slut-like appearance. Conversely, I discovered that if I wear extremely well-tailored, smart, dignified business suits with neat, stylish skirts, then the very same style of ultra high heels simply emphasises my elegant smartness and makes me look 'The efficient businesswoman'. This simple lesson has stood me in good stead throughout my adult career. Well, to proceed with Instalment 18: Needless to say, Velma and I were beside ourselves with delight at being offered such good jobs in London. Velma accepted a good secretarial job with a firm of textile merchants in the Soho district. My junior management job at the nearby Holborn headquarters of the estate agents would initially involve me in visiting many of their branches (in my high heels!), so I would get to know much of London well at their expense! Next, we needed to find somewhere in London to live. Even in those days, central London was prohibitively expensive, so we found a small 3-bedroomed house in New Cross, South-East London, and advertised for a third girl to join us share the rent. A very young, staid, prim-looking girl called Madeline knocked at the door. She had a pretty, obedient-looking face with a little rosebud mouth and an occasional timid smile. She wore a woolley cardigan, a tartan skirt, short white socks and SENSIBLE SHOES! Velma and I answered the door barefooted, so Madeline had no idea of our propensity towards ultra-high stiletto heels. She liked the third bedroom, and agreed to share the house there and then, and moved in at the weekend. Partly to enjoy our new-found indepedance and partly to get to know Madeline, we invited her to hit central London with us for a meal and a Saturday night out to celebrate our new life as flatmates. Velma and I duly changed into slinky dresses. Velma put on her 4 3/4" stiletto heeled 'Alps' slingbacks (despite the back-straps never staying up for long) and I was feeling so happy that, despite the long initial walk down Pepys Hill, I sensuously inserted my feet into my (then) highest heels - my white 5" stiletto courts from Regent Shoes! Madeline was the last to emerge, but oh dear, oh dear! Her 'Night out' costume was a prim gingham-check pink-and-white dress and a pair of beige 'old ladies' shoes with 1 1/2" stumpy Louis heels! When she saw Velma's and my towering stiletto heels for the first time her eyes grew wider and wider with astonishment and wonder. Neither of us made any comment at the time, but later on with some food and drinks inside us, Velma couldn't resist asking Madeline "Don't you have any higher heels for these sorts of nights out?". "Well" said Madeline "I do have one pair of 2 1/2" slightly slimmer heels that Mother let me buy, but she wouldn't let me bring them to London. Mother says 2 1/2" heels are the very highest that respectable girls like me should wear, and even those are to be saved back at home in Hampshire for me to wear to important weddings and things". Velma said, "Well what about your own wishes, what do you think of Lucy's 5" heels for instance?". Madeline blushed as red as an over-ripe tomato and stuttered "Well, I've always been told what to do by Mother. She would be furious if she could hear me now, but I admit that Lucy's shoes look WONDERFUL! I've seen lovely high heels in magazines and worn by film-stars, but I'm never allowed to even THINK of wearing anything like that!. How does it feel when you wear them, do you feel elegant?" "I'll say!" said Velma "That and much more besides!". Sunday morning saw Velma and I inviting Madeline down into the sitting-room where the two of us had lined up our (by now quite impressive) respective collections of high heels, all between 4" and 5". "There" said Velma "Try any of them on for yourself". "I daren't" said Madeline "Mother would crucify me!". We both piped-up together and told her that Mother didn't live with her any more and that she was grown-up and starting an adult life working in London. "Well, I feel very naughty and disobedient" Madeline said "But I suppose just trying them on the once won't do any harm" Velma's size 7s were far too big for her, but my size 5s were perfect. "Start with my black 4" heels" I said. But Madeline, blushing again with a strange mixture of apprehension and daring ignored my 4" heels, and reached straight for my lofty new black patent 4 3/4" stiletto 'Alps' and put them on. "Oh ...... Amazing ....... Amazing ........Amazing" she kept saying. She stood up and teetered around the central dining table, her slender ankles wobbling somewhat as she experienced true stilettos (and high ones at that) for the very first time. "Oh, just think what I've been missing for years ..... Amazing!". We couldn't get them off her! She insisted on trying a little Sunday morning walk to the park and back in them - click-click-click(extremely slowly and gingerly but with no major accidents), kept them on during our midday lunch, wore them around the house all the afternoon, and even by the evening when her feet were to sore to stand up in them any more, she sat listening to the radio with them on, and wanted to wear them in bed until I finally 'Put my foot down' and reclaimed them. "Lucy" she said "You don't know how much those AMAZING shoes have done for me; I realise that have served to liberate me from my Mother! Where can I buy my own amazing shoes like yours ....... will you and Velma take me there tomorrow?". Love, Lucy

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Lucy's Story (19) Posted by Lucy on July 27, 2003, 0:12:06 Hi Fred and Stu! Thank you for your postings. I hope Spikesfan will spot my Instalment 18 and this one and copy them across to MegaForums. Here is part 19: Velma, Madeline and I had moved into our new 3-bedroomed flat in South-East London, and each of us had a week to settle-in before starting our respective new jobs. Having tried-on, borrowed and worn my new black patent leather 4 3/4" stiletto-heeled 'Alps' court shoes during the whole of the day before, on Monday Madeline was acting like a thing possessed! The sudden thrill of wearing proper high stiletto heels for the first time had made her realise how much her mother had repressed her during her entire teenage years. She was liberated! She was living away from home! She could wear and do whatever she liked! She could wear high heels! She could wear VERY, VERY high heels! She had pleaded with Velma and I to take her to wherever she could try, choose and buy the very highest heels. She was suddenly a new and completely different person from the Madeline we had first met! Well of course the only place to go (I had yet to find other high-heel specialists) was good old Regent Shoes. We took the train from our digs up to Charing Cross Station and walked up to Wardour Street. Upon first seeing the incredible display of high and ultra-high heels in Regent Shoes' windows, Madeline's reaction was the same as Velma's and mine had been a couple of years previously. She was stunned! By now Velma and I regarded ourselves as seasoned campaigners, so we led Madeline inside and suggested starting with some highish (by most girl's standards) 4" heels. She was having none of it! "No" she said, "The weekend made me realise that my dreadful mother has repressed me for much too long! She has deprived me of all the fun and freedom that you two have been enjoying for years, so I'm not going to do this by halves. I'm going to make up for lost time by going all the way into some gorgeously high and exciting heels!" She now had a glint of maniaical determination in her eyes, and our protestations that she would have to work-up gradually in height and acclimatise her muscles and the soles of her feet fell on deaf ears. She shunned the 4" heels and all of the 4 3/8" (110mm) heels, and even our trusty 'Alps' models with the 4 3/4" heels. She acted like a driven woman. She asked me where the very highest heels were to be found, and I pointed out the special room behind the curtain, saying it was 'by appointment only'. Luckily, the room was free, so they admitted us there and then. To our utter amazement, Madeline even brushed-aside the 5" heeled models (like my own white ones) and wasn't content until the salesman brought out the range of fetishy 5 1/2" stiletto-heeled courts. "Hang on, that's even higher than anything Lucy or I have got!" exclaimed Velma in alarm. "No matter" said Madeline, "No-one's going to tell me what to do a moment longer - I'm going to show the world a new me!". As she stood up in a purple pair of those towering 5 1/2" stilettos, their awesome evil-looking fetishy heels looked a total contrast to her sweet young, innocent face. However, a momentary look of panic swept across it as she realised just how much the shoes were contorting her feet, ankles and legs. "Oh my golly!" she gasped, "I had no idea how difficult it would be to stand in heels of this height, let alone to walk in them" with which she teetered and minced forwards a couple of tiny steps before reaching out to steady herself. "Well, what did I try to tell you?" said Velma, "Take them off and settle for something rather lower for now". "No!" said Madeline, "Neither of you understand, they are STUPENDOUS and I won't be parted from them by anybody! They are utterly STUPENDOUS!". Before Velma and I could protest further, or talk any more sense, Madeline had bought them and was carrying them out of the shop! Next she was determined to buy a new outfit to go with them and we scurried up to the Regent Street clothes shops. Off came the frumpy woolley and the chequered skirt, and on went a lovely purple top (to match the shoes) and a tight, knee-length white skirt. "It's no good" said Madeline, "I can't wait till we get home, I am dying to wear everything right here and now!". So she left the clothes shop wearing her new outfit and her "Stupendous" 5 1/2" heels. Oh dear though! Not having had Velma's or my years of experience in high heels, and going straight from virtually nothing into 5 1/2", she could hardly do it! Her progress from the changing-room to the shop door was painfully slow and awkward with Madeline having to take the minutest little jerky steps, her body thrust into an unfamiliar posture whilst re-adjusting to balancing on the tiniest of tip-toes and almost impossibly high precarious heels. My goodness though, Velma and I had to give her 101% for guts! Despite it being obvious to every passer-by in sight that the was a total novice in heels, Madeline insisted on keeping those extraordinary shoes on for the rest of that shopping trip, and including the journey home. Progress through Leicester Square was embarrassingly slow and unsteady with a least four or five bad "tilt-overs" of her heels, and by the time we were passing beside Trafalgar Square and approaching Charing Cross Station her semi-sprained ankles were wobbling wildly with sheer fatigue. One city gent got so concerned that he even came to Madeline's assistance, offering to hail us a taxi. "No thank you" we said "we are nearly at the station". Alighting from the train at New Cross, Madeline even had the will-power and determination to walk up Pepys Hill whilst still wearing her new skyscaper shoes. As she finally collapsed on to our settee, we said "Poor Madeline, that looked as if it was a dreadful ordeal for you". "No" said Madeline, "Don't worry about that. Although my feet and ankles are killing me, it's been the best and most fabulous day of my ENTIRE LIFE and my life in my new-found STUPENDOUS high heels is only just beginning!". More soon! Love, Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (20) Posted by Lucy on August 5, 2003, 0:32:29 Hi again everyone! And many thanks to Erica, Sinkem, Allheel and Stu for their very nice responses to my Instalment 19, and my special thanks to Spikesfan (USA?) who is faithfully using his computer wizardry to re-copy my stories from Jenny's Forum on to MegaForums. Well, I'm writing this Part 20 on 4th August 2003, and I hope you all enjoy it!: Having settled in to our new three-bedroom flat in South-East London (central London rents were too expensive), Velma, Madeline and I had a week to explore London before we each started work. We drew up an enormous list of 'Musts' including London Zoo, Madame Tussauds' Waxworks, the Tower of London, all the main museums and far too many similar places. On Day One, Velma and I reached for our flatties and Madeline said "NO, please don't let me be the only one going around these places in very high stilettos". Velma and I chorused "Surely you're not thinking of a whole day's London sightseeing in HEELS?". "Just try and stop me!" said our newly re-born Madeline! Well, purely to give Madeline moral support, it ended up with all three of us setting-out in the highest heels we then owned - Velma in her 4 3/4" 'Alps', and me and Madeline in our Regent Shoes 'Special' stiletto courts - my white 5-inchers and Madeline's purple 5 1/2 inchers. We must have been an incredible sight making our way down the very, very long, steep incline of Pepy's Hill. Madeline was precarious enough on the flat, but pitched forward on hundreds of yards of sloping paving stones was a marathon for even the most experienced heel-wearer. The ordeal would have finished-off any less determined girl, but Madeline had tremendous pluck accrued from years of being suppressed. She not only made it (somehow!) to the bottom of the hill, but amazingly she doggedly wore them throughout our day traipsing right around London Zoo and then visiting the London Planetarium. The only time she took them off was when we sprawled-flat in Regent's Park to eat our lunchtime sandwiches. Even then she would not be parted with them completely - as she munched away she fondled her new skyscaper shoes in her hands, constantly gazing in awe at them and running her fingers up and down the full 5 1/2 inches of the towering heels as if she still could not believe that she was now actually able to own them and wear them. "Absolutely stupendous" she murmered again. By the end of the day, even experienced heel-wearers Velma and I were suffering from "pressure-burn" under the balls of our feet, so for Madeline in her 5 1/2" killers it must have been the most unbearable torture. However, she not only made it home, but demanded a repeat excercise from all three of us every subsequent day that week! In fact, interestingly, the "heel-wearer's burning" that we all suffered for the first three or four days began lessing considerably by the final day. It is surprising how quickly the human body can re-adjust and toughen-up to new demands placed upon it! Madeline's confidence received a further boost when she noticed how many admiring glances we were getting, and even outright compliments. At the Tower of London, a group of four young American men came up to us and said that three English girls in such high heels were the best sightseeing they'd seen in the whole of Scotland and England! At the British Museum, a large party of Japanese tourists stuck fairly close to us. As you know, I wear glasses myself, but the majority of their group wore thick glasses which made them look like World War II Japanese fighter pilots, and they seemed to spend half the afternoon concentrating much more on our ultra high heels than they did on all the wonderful exhibits and antiquities! I will never forget the funniest bit. The three of us stood perched on our heels as we peered into a large glass case containing Greek vases, and we could see the reflection of all the Japanese men behind us obviously feasting their eyes on our legs and shoes. I whispered to the others "Let's all treat them to a sudden spasm of shoe-play and heel-wobbling" and we began sliding our feet in and out of the court shoes and wobbling our lofty heels from side to side. Immediately there were audible gasps and a ripple of excitement from the Japanese group, and reflected in the cabinet it looked as though four or five of them were in the midst of some sort of apoplectic fit or frenzied seizure! Just at that point, Madeline spoiled everything by wobbling so violently and enthusiastically in her unfamiliar heels on the museum's highly polished floor that she lost her balance and fell down SPLAT! "Oh my gosh!" said Velma "Are you alright?". "Alright" chuckled Madeline as she lay there, "I've never ever felt better!" and exploded into helpless paroxisms of laughter. Over tea and cake in the museum's tea room, we complimented Madeline on being able to laugh at herself for falling-over on her 5 1/2" heels. "I wasn't laughing about falling over" she said "It was the incredible expressions on the faces of all those Japanese high-heel-spotters!". Well, all too soon that super week of high-heeled London sightseeing came to an end and I had to prepare for reporting to work in Holborn (central London) for my first day in my first job. On the advice of my business academy and with some help from Mummy, I had purchased three ultra-smart business suits with mid-length skirts. Tights (panthose) had now started appearing in the larger shops, but for the time being, I decided to stick suspenders and good quality stockings, thinking that nice straight seams added a certain class to my outfit. Although I had passed my interview in 4 3/4" stiletto heels, I decided to 'play it safe' and start work in my lowest (4") black patent leather stiletto heels. I wore my hair 'up' in a coiled bun, put on my black-framed 'secretary' glasses and put an assortment of pens, pencils, notebooks etc. into a black patent leather document wallet which I carried to work. The train to Charing Cross and a short journey on the Underground got me to work. I had grossly underestimated the sheer crush of the morning 'rush hour' which nearly made me late. Clicking hastily across the marble foyer again in my steel-tipped stilettos, I only just had to to freshen-up my make-up in the 'Ladies' before reporting to my new boss. As my immediate superior, Richard ("Call me Ricky")Everson was just as nice and welcoming as the managing director had been at my interview, a cheerful but very shrewd operator. He seemed to visibly brighten as he saw me enter in my business suit and high heels and welcomed me very cordially. He explained that as a trainee on the management side, my first job would be to visit all of their numerous branches of estate agents scattered throughout greater London, partly to run errands by acting as a document-courier, but mainly to familiarise myself with the premises, the staff and the overall running of the business. "The only thing is" said Ricky "Although (if you don't mind me saying so) those high-heeled shoes of yours look superb for the office side of your work, you will need something lower and more walkable-in for all the beetling to and fro around the city!". I opened my mouth to tell him that they WERE my lowest, most walkable-in shoes, but remembering all my training in restrained efficiency, I simply nodded in agreement and thought to myself "London ain't seen nothin' yet as far as Lucy's high heels are concerned!". More soon, Love, Lucy.

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Lucy's Story (21) Posted by Lucy on August 23, 2003, 1:15:55 Hi Everyone, and a special 'Thank you' to Stu, Erica and Laser for replying here on Jenny's Forum to my last story (20), and an even more special 'THANK YOU!' to dear Spikesfan for copying it over on to MegaForums! I am commencing this Instalment (21) on 23rd August 2003: Wearing my lowest 4" stiletto heels, I started my first job in the Holborn headquarters of the London firm with my immediate boss Ricky Everson sending me around London to visit as many as possibly of their branches of estate agents. This was partly to run errands and take documents back and forth, but mainly to acquaint me with the workings of the branches and their staff. During the early days, I was glad that Ricky had advised me against very high heels, bacause I had never in my life done so much walking! Every journey involved hurrying for buses, plunging up and down escalators for underground trains, crossing roads, walking innumerable blocks, frequently getting lost, and all in my 4" stiletto courts. Until then, I had prided myself on being a 'seasoned high-heeler' but I had not reckoned on the difference between training in Miss Sheridan's business academy and hours of daily trekking throughout London! By midweek my poor little tootsies felt like steaks after a long bashing with the meat-tenderizer. As for my stiletto heels, with each mile I walked they (my lowest heels!) felt as if they were getting higher and higher - 4" becoming 5" and 6" and Oooh my feet! Whenever I arrived at one of our branches, it was a relief (whilst introducing myself) to get some respite by feeling my shoes sink in to their soft carpets. Despite my strict training at the academy in NO SHOE-PLAY OR DANGLING, I could not resist rocking my stilettos from side to side to ease my ankles, and to slip each foot out of and back into each shoe in turn. However, although I could hardly help doing this, I noticed at the various branches that the staff, especially the young men were looking at the new trainee management girl with intitial curiosity, and that quite a number of them did a 'double-take' when they noticed my shiny black patent leather high stiletto heels, despite the fact that I was trying to be discreet about toying with my shoes to ease try to ease the searing pain in my feet. The fellas at the branches must have been chatting about me over the telephone, because before the end of my first week, Ricky reported that I had already been nick-named 'Heels' by the branches! Despite taking that as a compliment (a girl likes to be noticed!), by the weekend I came to one of those rare moments in my life when I honestly wondered whether to give up heels! My feet were wrecks, with burning balls, squashed toes, blisters everywhere and a general swelling with rose as far up as my ankles. Velma and Madeline were better off because although thay also gamely went off to work each day in their own stilettos (higher than mine), at least they could sit at office desks and spend most of the day off their feet. Bless their hearts, each evening they awaited my painful return home with an enamel bowl full of wonderful hot water with a dash of antiseptic Savlon thrown in, into which I would lower my throbbing pedal extremities. What I would have done without the relief of that nightly footbath I just don't know. In fact, by the following Monday morning, my feet were still so tender that I set out for work in flatties! However, that presented another problem. The flatties made my feet feel easier but they made me feel AWFUL! I couldn't go to my second week in business feeling like a dowdy old frump! It sounds crazy, but despite my marmalized feet I turned straight back indoors, kicked-off my flatties and stepped into one of my three pairs of 4 3/4" stiletto-heeled 'Alps'. "There, that's better" I said out loud "To hell with poorly feet!". But as I tottered down the regular morning challenge of Pepy's hill, almost immediately I came to regret the shoe-switch. My liking for tight 'pencil' skirts on my business suits hampered my stride at the best of times, and the sheer never-ending downward slope of the hill and the ordeal of walking in very high, precarious stilettos with agonising feet presented a marathon which I will never forget. On the train to central London I thought "How on earth am I going to get through the day?". Somehow or another I must have done, but I remember employing a few pain-easing tricks like buying some cushioned insoles, talcum powdering the insides of the shoes now and again, and trying to walk at different times with both heels leaning inwards towards each other and then later leaning outwards away from each other to try and spread my body-weight on to different parts of my excruciatingly overburdened feet. I also took off my shoes whenever on buses etc. to ease and wiggle my squashed toes. Nevertheless as the afternoon wore on I was hobbling very badly. I caught side of myself reflected in a shop window gingerly teetering and mincing along like a pathetic drunkard walking barefoot on red hot coals. It was not only unbearably painful, but pitying stares from many passers-by made the circumstance very humiliating. Upon my return to our house that night, I was even more despairing of wearing high heels in London. No, said Velma, DON'T give up Loo, keep going because your feet will start becoming acclimatised to all the London heel-wearing and will start to harden-up. To my everlasting joy she was right! Almost from the next day onwards, the soreness started to lessen, the ball and soles of my feet began to harden, and my high stilettos became easier and easier to wear for longer and longer periods. In fact, as I became less and less aware of my own high-heel discomfort, I even thought I would brave wearing my white 5" heeled stiletto courts at the weekend, and also I was becoming more aware of the interesting changes in shoe fashion that were going on around me, and more aware that there were other exciting shoe shops in addition to Regent Shoes! More of this next time! Love, Lucy

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Lucy's Story (22) Posted by Lucy on August 25, 2003, 17:32:41 Hi Everyone! And especially to Spikesfan for continuing to copy my instalments from here on Jenny's Forum across to MegaForums and for his kind messages, and also to Erica and Sinkem for their replies. I am writing this instalment No. 22 on 25th August 2003: Having recounted to you my first week's work in London and the unforseen agony of wearing 4" stiletto heels (my lowest) all over the city, by the end of week 2 they were starting to 'harden-up' and the skin under the balls/toes of my feet was becoming more leathery. Also, the shiny black patent leather court shoes, which were brand new for the interviews, were becoming more worn-in and comfortable. Despite my feet acclimatising themselves to all the walking in heels, I decided do delay my plans to go into really high heels for a wee bit longer to be on the safe side. As I criss-crossed hither and thither around London, I was able to start taking an interest in the shoe fashions that other girls were wearing in the capital. This was now the autumn of 1963, seven years after the great stiletto heel revolution first hit the British streets. By this time, the general trend in the fashion magazines was for lower heels of 2 1/2" or less. However, two camps of heel-wearers seemed to have emerged - those lemming-like fashion followers who adhered to the lower heel trend like zombies, and those real high heelers like me and Velma who, having once tasted the unique thrill of wearing SERIOUSLY high heels, were to stick loyally with them rather than settling for anything less, despite the lower-heels fashion whim. On London's streets, the two opposing types of ladies became very obvious. In fact, during this period, the second category of ladies were wearing, if anything, HIGHER heels than they had been doing, if only to emphasise that they were not going along with the herd. Some of them had some gorgeous stilettos and I noticed quite a few more pairs of 'Alps'(just like my 4 3/4" pairs) click-clicking around London. After work, I would catch the homeward train from Charing Cross Station. Beforehand, I would sometimes relax over a hot coffee in Villier Street, a very steeply descending street alongside the station. From the coffee-shop window, I noticed several ladies whose heels were so high that they could hardly hurry down the slope to the underground station at the bottom. I saw more than one twisted ankle occurring right in front of the coffeehouse due to their heels being too high for the slope and the bustle. Some of the ladies adopted my own trick (which I have previously described) of leaning my high stiletto heels inwards towards each other when descending very steep slopes this counteracts the steepness and temporarily brings the heels of my feet nearer to the ground until the slope has levelled-out. However, one very beautiful blonde lady who descended that street every day rather overdid it. She had a superb pair of light tan-coloured 5" stiletto courts, and she had to lean them in quite considerably to manage Villiers Street. As the weeks passed, I noticed that her lovely pair of shoes were becoming more and more distorted because of this, so that even when on the flat, both heels had adopted a permanent and very pronounced inward lean. That shows the danger of over-doing that technique. Sometimes that same symptom can come about simply because the heels are too high for the particular girl wearing them. In my third week at work I followed a lady (with very tilting heels) and gentleman on to an underground train and got squashed against them both. The gentleman said he had noticed her having "difficulty" with her new shoes. She explained to him "They are really quite a bit too high for me, but I love the look of them so much that I can't bear to come out in lower heels!". Sorry if this has been a short instalment, but I'm having to dash out now, so I'll break off and write a longer one soon! Love to all, Lucy

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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

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Lucy's Story (24) Posted by Lucy on August 27, 2003, 23:40:53 Hi Everyone! Following-on from my Instalment No. 23, here is No 24 in which I comtinue to try and help Cheryl and anyone else interested in the high-heel-wearers' calf/tendon shortening problem: From my memory, The lady health specialist at the health farm wrote-down the following exercises and guidelines more or less as follows: 1. Until you have successfully reversed the situation sufficiently to be able to stand and walk comfortable in bare feet, either abandon high heels completely, or only wear them for a smallish part of each day. 2. Early each morning soften your tissues with ten minutes' heat treatment - the health farm's steam room or sauna, or at your home a hot bath (or these days, a jaccusi!). 3. If available, immediately afterwards further soften the tissues with a massage but only from a good professional masseur. 4. Lean forwards with your hands bra 2. Further

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Lucy's Story (24a) Posted by Lucy on August 28, 2003, 2:00:41 Cont. ... Sorry everyone! I must have inadvertantly hit the 'Post' half-way through Instalment 24, so let's just carry it on as Instalment 24a: 4. In bare feet, lean slightly forwards, bracing your hands against a wall, post, mantlepiece etc. Place the left foot forwards with the knee bent, and place the other foot slightly behind you with the knee straight, and lowering that heel to the ground (or as near as you can get!) with your weight on it. Then flexing the front knee further forward, allow your body-weight to stretch to calf/tendon of the rear leg. Then change legs and repeat, and so on, gradually moving the rear foot further back from the wall or post, increasing the stretch on the tendon. Do this slowly and steadily. Do not bounce your body-weight up down as you stretch the tendon as this could damage or tear the tendon in the process. Do this session (of at least ten minutes) at least once, but preferably several times a day. 5. When standing, if you find it impossible or extremely painful to lower your own heels down into the horizontal position to stand flat on the floor, put on the very LOWEST heels you can tolerate, and do the daily exercises in those. 6. Also, if you cannot walk at all without heels, put on the lowest you can tolerate, and not only use them for the exercise in item 5, but also wear them all the time, not going any higher unless having to wear higher heels for the odd special occasion. 7. In week 2, choose (or buy) heels ideally 1/4", but no more than 1/2" lower and repeat the exercises and daily living in those heels. Then, when you can stand it (usually between a week and a month), go down yet again in heel-height by a similar amount, and so on until you CAN again stand and walk barefooted on flat floors. 8. If, having 'gone completely flat', you feel that it is still a strain, optionally you can consolidate the stretching by temporarily going into "negative heels". These are special flat shoes where the your heels can sink further into the sole of the shoe than your toes - ie the reverse of high heels! This should not be overdone, but can help with just that last bit of tendon-stretching. 9. When you can tolerate walking barefoot or in flat shoes around the house again without any great discomfort (this took me about four months, but took Madeline over twice as long), start going for outside walks in flat shoes as frequently as possible, gradually increasing the walk from say, one to five or more miles. Then join an aerobic class and REALLY exercise those feet! 10. Still in flat shoes, start walking UP hilly streets, but ensuring that the back of each shoe returns flat-down on to the pavement with every stride. Or, in bare feet and the seaside, run UP the sides of sand-dunes with your whole foot contacting the slope. Those are very beneficial exercises. 11. To further consolidate having returned to again being able to "Go flat", stand with your toes on a firm step (the bottom tread on your staircase is as good as anything) and the backs of your heels in mid-air. With your hands holding-on to anything suitable, smoothly lower your feet from tip-toe to having your own heels lower than the stair you are standing on. Again do this for ten minutes several times a day, each week trying to go lower below step-level. 12. With bare legs and feet, do plenty of early morning exercises which benefit the problem: Standing with both feet together and flat on the ground, and with straight knees, bend over and touch your toes ten or twently times. Then, sitting or lying down, do plenty of ankle-flexing exercises, depressing each foot downwards as far as it will go, and then (very importantly) upwards as far as it can go. Do this thirty or forty times! 13. Another danger if becoming 'permanently high-heeled' is that your toes can become permanently stuck up at right-angles to your foot. Mummy's old Aunt Edna had this problem having worn high heels throughout her entire business career working in accounts for Vavasseur's, a silk firm in Cheapside near the St. Paul's area of London from about 1915 to the mid 1950s. The television newsreader Kenneth Kendell (now retired) was a descendant of the management. Although thick (before stilettos came in), great-aunt Edna's heels were always surprisingly high for the times (at least 4") because she was tiny (only about 4' 10") and wanted all the extra height that she could get. As she approached retirement, she succeeeded in gradually 'coming down' flat, but her toes stayed sticking up towards the ceiling and then became stuck that way with arthritis. She had the misfortune of ending up walking around in ugly surgical boots, especially-made with bulging toe-caps to accommodate her vertical toes for years, right up to her death aged 96. This can be avoided by plenty of flattie or barefoot walking each day, and when at rest sitting down or in bed, exercising the toes by curling them under the foot and plenty of general wiggling. 14. Remember, warm-up and soften the tissues with heat-treatment (and maybe a massage) before doing any of these activities, and whilst doing them keep your legs and feet warm with tracksuits, socks etc. Drink plenty of water during and after all exercises. 15. After reversing the calf, tendon and toe problems, think very carefully about how great a portion (if any!) of each day you dare risk in high heels, especially if they are ultra-high. Perhaps it varies from person to person. Some people seem to have much more supple and rubbery bodies than others. In my case, having successfully followed those guidelines and curing my comparatively mild problem, I have found ever since that as long as, on average, I spend AT LEAST 30% (but preferable 40% to 50%) barefoot or in flatties each day, and I do my exercises each day, then the problem does not seem to recur. There! that, I think, covers all the main points. However, on a personal note can I say to Cheryl how much I hope these tips and experiences help her, and Cheryl in the meantime, to help prevent you from sinking into the mud, can I suggest that boots with high WEDGES would present a much bigger and more coninuous sole-area to the mud than any heeled boot. To the ladies in general, of course if you prefer to choose to be a permanently high-heeled lady, simply ignore all the above tips and carry on wearing ultra-high heels morning, noon and night. However, if your fear a predicament like Cheryls, or wish to retain the daily THRILL of going from utterly flat up to stepping into 5" heels or therabouts (my main reason for looking after my tendons), or simply feel that you wish to retain the full use of your un-heeled feet as nature intended you to do, then good luck in keeping your high-and-low options fully open as girls like me and Laurie do. And finally, to conclude this instalment, note that Firefox, as a prelude to his own wonderful collection of high heels, includes a picture of a pair of flatties as "The single most important pair of shoes in everyone's collection!". Love, Lucy

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  • 4 weeks later...

Lucy's Story (24b)

Posted by Lucy on September 11, 2003, 7:57:40

Hi Everyone! My special thanks to those who responded to my last two instalments - Puffer, Stu, SpikesFan, Erica and Julie, and to the indomitable Firefox for continuing to moderate this Forum of Jenny's and to Spikesfan for continuing to copy-across my instalments on to MegaForums.

Before I continue with my high heel adventures in London, I promised to add to the foot-care advice that I gave in Instalment 24a, so I am calling this Instalment 24b:

Many girls (and maybe even some guys?) are put-off wearing high heels because of resultant foot or tendon problems. However, my experience is that virtually all of these problems are preventable and/or reversible, given a little basic foot-care knowledge. It is so sad that many feel denied the thrill of wearing high heels when a little more understanding might re-open that pleasure to them. As my unfolding story relates, I have worn very high heels all my life(well, from 13 to 59 and counting) with no present problems, but only by taking very great care of my feet and tendons:

TENDONS/CALVES These can shorten unless a decent part of every day is spent in flatties/barefeet, and if tendon-stretching excercises are not carried out daily. I have dealt with this thoroughly in Instalments 24 and 24a.

To give fresh heart to those fearful of becoming a "permanent high-heeled woman" and terrified by gloom-mongers and biased podetricians, many of us have found that tendon-shortening is NOT inevitable and can be kept at bay. Laurieheels in her Training Diaries, (MegaForums 'Fetish Subjects')recounts still being able to go from 5" and 5 1/2" heels "In 0 to 5 seconds"! Erica posts that she daily wears 4" to 5" heels to work, and has no tendon-shortening problems. Barbara Windsor, one of Britain's most notable mega-high-heel-wearing figureheads for years ever since the old "Carry On" films, appeared this year in a newspaper photograph walking along the street in absolutely flat trainers! Maybe, for all I know, there may be some girls for whom any high heel wearing would cause irrevocable tendon-shortening, but all I am saying is that from my own experience, and judging by the other ultra high heel wearers quoted, due care and attention can enable us girls to enjoy the highest heels without becoming trapped into them!

CALF-CRAMPS I am sure we've all been gripped by the sudden spasm of a knotted-calf-cramp, particularly when in bed. Worse still is if it happens in the street when it can be caused by going into heels which are of unaccustomed height, too suddenly for too long. Your calves are subjected to being too tight for too long, and suddenly go into an agonising camp. Disaster! The only relief would be to relax the calves by removing the shoes and yet you are stranded on a busy pavement wearing your only pair of shoes! This can be prevented by only going into higher heels in gradual stages and taking shorter walks to start with. I also recommend the precaution of folding a flimsy pair of flatties into your handbag for emergencies! Given time, your legs, calves etc. re-adjust to coping with higher heels and you should be OK.

BUNIONS A bunion (Hallux Vulgus) is one of the commonest afflictions of high heel wearers. The main joint of the big toe becomes inflamed and swollen. The first symptom is usually a redness of the inner side of the foot at this joint and then some swelling. Then a callus can develop over the bunion, and internally a loss of mobility

of the joint and big toes can occur, together with an increase in pain. If untreated, this can further deteriorate into toe distortion, arthritis, bone stress-fractures and surface tissue ulceration!

Bunions are caused mainly by shoes (whether flat or heeled) being too narrow or too tight overall causing pressure on the toe-joint. A high heel exascerbates the problem by forcing more weight and pressure down on to the toe joints, but I have found that high heels alone are OK as long as my shoes are wide enough across the toe-joints.

Preventing bunions: Choose only wide-fitting shoes. If still to narrow across the toes, immediately get them professionally stretched, or if you have many such pairs, buy a shoe-stretcher NOW and stretch them yourself. The best range of stretchers that I have found on the Net is George's:

http://www.emocs.com/stretcher.htm

They supply shoe stretchers not only for the width, but also for the length, for the toe-height, for cowboy boots and for BUNIONS! They also do stretching-tongs for bunions.

Curing Bunions: Wear on wide-fitting shoes. Cool it for a while regarding very high heels (or all heels), or if you can't bring yourself to do that, at least change to flatties THE MOMENT your bunion starts hurting. Consult your doctor regarding medications to eliminate the inflammation and swelling. It is with it in the long run! When returning to stunning heels, do it with care!

CORNS Never let corny skin build up, especially outside your little toes. Remove it INSTANTLY and if necessary, daily with a blade-guarded corn scalpel. Also promptly stretch your shoes wider, as above!

Happy heeling! Love Lucy

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Lucy's Story (24c)

Posted by Lucy on September 12, 2003, 0:27:21

Hi Everyone!

I am writing this on 12th September '03. Before I move on with my main story, I've just though of a few more tips on footcare that I ought to include:

STRETCHING SHOES Having warned of the dangers of tight, pinching shoes, in the Instalment 24b I recommended getting a shoe-stretcher. I should have added that the stretching applies to leather (not various synthetic) shoes, and that the leather needs to be softened before the stretcher is used. Softening can be done by:

1) The traditional cobblers' trick that I used in the 1960s. They would fill all or part of the shoe with new, moist potato peelings, and leave for a while until the leather is moist and pliable.

or 2) Simply moisten the leather by inserting a wet sponge instead of the potato peelings.

or 3) These days most shoe shops sell a spray canister of stretching fluid. Whether this is any better than potato peelings or a wet sponge I don't know.

You can stop either 1), 2) or 3) from evaporating and re-drying too quickly by wrapping the whole moistening shoe in a waterproof polythene bag until the leather is fully soft and ready for stretching.

BUNIONS As well as ensuring that the shoe's toe-box is adequately wide, pressure on the ball of the foot can be relieved if you choose shoes that have an inbuilt cushioned insole. Further relief can be obtained by buying your own cushioned insoles and fitting them into the pair of shoes. However, check that the shoe is sufficiently roomy to allow the insole to be inserted without constricting the foot.

Also, various localised bunion-guards, braces and regulators are available on the Net from such suppliers as FootSmart: http://www.footsmart.com/ProductRecords.aspx?category=BT&pgtitle=Bunions/Toes/C...

"TOE-BURN" Virtually everyone suffers painful pressure-burn under the toes and ball of the foot in the early weeks (or even months) of first wearing high heels. Because the height of the heel throws far more than usual of your body-weight on to your tip-toes, your foot-soles in the toe-box becomes sore. Also the pressure impedes the blood circulation in the front part of your feet so that those tissues are not rejuvenated nor is the lactic acid carried away and you get gout-like pain which increases the longer you stand in the heels. Always try to walk around rather than to stand in one spot, as this helps the foot circultion.

Sadly, this toe-burn causes many first-time teenage girls to give up high heels for good withing days of starting! However, assuming that the toe-box is sufficiently wide and cushioned, it is amazing how the human body adapts itself to cope during a decent spell of regular heel-wearing. It takes for first to or three weeks of stubborn persistance in heels for the initial pressure-pains to begin to lessen, and after a number of further weeks of daily heel-wearing, the teething pains usually disappear altogether, opening the way for all-day happy heeling! One word of warning though; if you go back to heels after a few months in flatties, the pressure pain will return and will need to be worked-off once more by regular heel-wearing.

SORES AND BLISTERS Slightly loose-fitting shoes can cause WORSE sores and blisters than over-tight shoes because they slip around and rub areas of skin at every step.

Very loose-fitting shoes that slop off-and-on each foot completely are usually OK because they have little or no contact against the sides or back of the foot.

There remedy for slightly loose shoes is to fit an internal insole and/or heelgrip to make them fit snugly.

DEFORMED TOES The late 1950s ultra pointed "Winklepicker" toes were potentially ruinous to the footshape, forcing the toes inwards into a point, and the big toe joint to project, inviting a bunion. This fashion, amongst others, is with us again now.

Luckily these days, there are also many very stylish fashion shoes available with broader, rounder or squarer toe-shapes. Firstly, choose a sufficiently wide fit for your feet, if necessary widening the toebox with a shoe-stretcher. Then, if the toe is pointed, pack-in sufficient cotton wool (Arno suggests lambswool that ballet dancers use) or my later invention of papier mache to prevent the toes from sliding forward into the pointed front-end of the shoe. To ensure the preservation of parallel, straight toes, perhaps sleep each night with soft rubbery toe-spacers between each toe.

Happy high-heel-wearing, Love Lucy

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Lucy's Story (25) Posted by Lucy on September 19, 2003, 20:01:40 Hi Everyone! An astonishingly warm welcome to you all, especially to loyal responders Spikesfan, Puffer, Robert, Katie, Sinkem, Confession, Allheel, Stu, Erica and Julie! I hope the latter two found my footcare tips (instalments 24, 24a, 24b, 24c) useful for their bunions, tendons etc.! Well, with this Instalment No. 25, we return to my high heel adventures after starting my first job in London, Autumn 1963: After a month of agony in walking all over London to visit each of our branches in my high stiletto heels, thankfully my feet had become hardened and accustomed to all the walking, and had settled down. This was great! At last I was able to move up from my lowest 4" heels to show London the REAL Lucy! My first three pairs of 'Alps' court shoes (with their thin 4 3/4" heels) had become scruffy, so I re-visited good old Regent Shoes in Wardour Street and bought myself two more pairs of 'Alps' in different colours. Just as I was turning to leave, on a sudden whim I thought 'Hang on, I got my wonderful special 5" white patent leather courts here, I wonder if they do them in "business" colours like navy blue and black'. Their special private room for "Esteemed customers" happened to be free, so almost before I realised what I was doing, I had been in there, and found and bought the most stunning pair of 5" stiletto heeled plain shiny patent leather courts with low-cut uppers and the lowest-cut toe that I had ever seen, exposing the first part of my toes - what they now call 'toe cleavage'. They were incredible! In the mirror, my legs and feet looked like those of a top Hollywood film star! When I got home that evening, Velma and Madeline gasped in delight. They both said that they had never seen anything so lovely or so sexy. That gave me a problem though, because I had really been shopping for business shoes! "Are they too sexy for wearing for my work?" I asked anxiously. "Well" said Velma, "black is the right colour for business shoes, but they might cause a riot in your firm!". Madeline said "Well, I'm wearing my higher purple 5 1/2" heels to work everyday, but I'm a sort of backroom girl whereas you are in everyone's eye all the time, and your shoes are a lot more low-cut, revealing and provocative than mine!". This gave me a dilemma, and I had a rather sleepless night worrying that I had mis-spent my hard-earned wages on inappropriate shoes. However, in the morning the sun was shining and my shoes said "WEAR ME!", so I did! But oh my goodness - I thought I was used to 5" heels from wearing my white ones at Little Canada Holiday Camp etc., but these low-cut ones were a whole new and more difficult experience. The cut of the sides and toe was so low and skimpy that there was little to hold and support my feet! The morning's usual long descent of Pepy's Hill saw me wobbling horrendously on those unstable 5" stilettos and the uneven paving slabs didn't help. I was glad to get to the station without a sprained ankle and sat down for the train journey with great relief. Many 'City gents' still commuted wearing bowler hats and carrying furled umbrellas. One spent the entire journey with his eyes rivetted to my new shoes. Just before getting off, he stammered "D-d-d-d-d'you mind awfully telling me where you got those enchanting shoes - I would give anything to buy some for my wife?". I took great pleasure in telling him about Regent Shoes, and his admiration gave me great heart in continuing to wear those wobbly but very sensuous shoes. As I entered our firm's foyer, my 5" stilettos clicking (and wobbling) across the shiny black marble floor,I sensed the receptionist staring an my heels in disapproval. By the time I got upstairs and entered our office suite I was very nervous of the reception I would receive. Ricky Everson (my boss) noticed my new heels immediately. He sprang up form his desk, and shot forward to greet me. "My, my" he exclaimed "We've been shoe-shopping, haven't we Lucy! - WOW!". His undisguised approval gave me the confidence to wear them around the building for the rest of that first day, despite further heel-tilts and wobbles. During the morning break, I overheard a group of the junior office boys saying "knockout shoes!" and as the day wore on, the eyes of most of the menfolk were following my teetering steps around the building. In fact, now that Pepy's Hill was replaced by the comfort of the office carpet, I began to positively enjoy the wobbly feel of my new low-cut 5" stilettos and even treated the guys to a phoney wobble or two for good measure. Miss Sheridan's Acadamy had taught us to display the outside of the heel, so whenever I went over to stand at a filing cabinet, I would put my weight on one foot, and would elegantly put the other foot out to the side, almost resting its 5" heel horizontally on the floor. It was hilarious to turn and see the fellas change instantly from staring like mad to assuming an air of contrived indifference! Looking back, it was naughty and teasing of me, but the power and effect of those needle-thin 5" stilletos was impossible to resist! As that first day in my new shoes wore on, I suddenly remembered the good old "Catwalk Flip" and put it into effect along the corridors. O000oooh, the sensation of doing that in those already-wobbly shoes was indescribable! Those heels immediately complied to my ankle-flips and rolled dramatically inwards at the end of every pace. It was so delicious! I thought I was just practicing unseen, but instinct made me look back down the corridor and there were a whole host of fellas' heads all gazing at my every move. The following day, a pretty young secretary spoke to me in the ladies' room and sheepishly asked me where I had got my lovely shoes from. Then at lunchtime another office girl shyly asked the same question. By home-time, five of them had asked, not knowing about the others. The next day two more of the firm's girls asked the same question, including (believe it or not) the frosty seemingly disapproving receptionist who I had never seen wearing anything over 3". My new low-cut toe-cleavage black patent leather 5" stiletto courts had not only been accepted, but had been a fantastic hit with the management, but also Velma was right, they had been a sensation (albeit a wobbly sensation) with the entire head office! More soon! Love, Lucy

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