Spikes Fan Posted September 24, 2003 Author Posted September 24, 2003 Lucy's Story (26) Posted by Lucy on September 23, 2003, 3:41:17 Hi Everyone, and especially to those who kindly responded to my Story No. 25 - Erica, Fred, Sinkem, Steve and Stu. Here is Instalment 26, written on 23rd September 2003: As Velma had predicted, my very sexy new 5" black patent stiletto heeled courts with the very low-cut uppers and toes caused somewhat of a sensation on the first day that I wore them at work. It was the first day that I had worn anything that high during business hours. They felt indescribably great on my feet. In fact, it gave me so much pleasure teetering around the desks and from office to office in them all day, that I found it quite difficult to concentrate on my work! Although now well-used to my various high-heeled 'Alps' shoes, the extra bit of heel-height of the new 5" heels sent a new muscle-tension rippling of through my body as I stood and as I walked. It was so EXCITING to feel that I could spend my business life in such heels, and go back and forth and everywhere looking and feeling so fantastic! Whenever I stood in discussion with anybody, I found myself tilting my heels gently to left to right to left to right just to remind myself that I really was in such ultra-high deliciously precarious heels. Most of the other office girls had noticed how stunning they were, and what a dramatic effect they had been having on the male staff. Apparently one or to of the bolder fellas had started going up to some of the girls and asking "Any chance of turning up in shoes like Lucy's?". As I have already said, a number of the girls had sidled up to me individually and asked where such high stilettos could be purchased. It was extremely flattering and also rather sweet. Hey Presto! well within a week, several of them must have been over to Regent Shoes for they started click-click-clicking into work in the same model of 5" heels! For the most part they looked really great - such high heels transformed them all! I could see that despite trying to keep up appearances, the firm's fellas were over the moon! They couldn't believe what was happening in their very own office complex! Suddenly the place was alive with high stiletto godesses (like Laurie!) tottering to and fro. Those shoes made all the wearers feel like a million dollars, and they all thanked me as the morning wore on. In a very nice way, it sort of brought us all closer together as a little group of about six, having something in common. Maud joked that we were the "Five-Inch Club", and the name stuck for a long,long time. She suggested that during the lunch-break, we should all treat the good citizens of London to our new heels and totter around into Shaftsbury Avenue for an inaugural lunch. As the lunch-hour began, the six of us all clicked and clacked across the marble foyer on our way out. We must have been quite a sight! No-one wore jeans or trousers to business in those days, only skirts and stockings. As we burst out on to Holborn's pavement (sidewalk), the passers-by became transfixed as they watched six business girls mincing towards Shaftsbury Avenue in identical shiny patent leather 5" stiletto heels, grinning away to each other and enjoying every moment. Remembering that all of the others were not particularly experienced high heel wearers, there were a good few heel-scrapes, wobbles and tilt-overs. Whenever someone's heel threw them off balance or one of our heels got stuck between paving slabs, a mini cheer erupted from the rest of us followed by gales of good-natured laughter. It was such enormous fun that I've remembered it with great fondness right to this day! A high-spirited lunch was followed by our return walk back for the afternoon's business. By this time the less experienced heel-wearers had started struggling a bit, the strain of being pitched up so high starting to show on their taut faces. Nevertheless, thay all gamely made their way back without anyone toppling over. Just as we were making away back across the foyer,who should come clicking into the building behind us but the prim and disapproving receptionist, now in her own pair of identical brand-new five-inchers! She was not managing at all well in them and, catching sight of the rest of us, she went all embarrassed, blushed furiously, took her heels off and suffered the indignity of pattering the rest of the way over the black marble floor to her vreception desk in her stockinged feet. Once back at their own office desks, the other girls could sit down and relax their feet. All except Freda that is - the young lady from the mailing department. Her job entailed constantly going around the entire building to collect mail for franking and processing. As the afternoon wore on she was very obviously suffering from sole-burn and general fatigue, but she gamely battled on in her pair to the end of the day, and still managed a smile whenever she passed me. Nearly all of the girls in the 5" Club became ardent converts to high stilettos having experienced that first taste of the thrill of wearing them, and observed the resultant impact on their colleagues, especially the fellas! However, none of them had the special extra opportunity of wearing them all over London, which was a large part of my early duties, and which gave rise to resultant adventures. More soon! Love, Lucy.
Spikes Fan Posted October 9, 2003 Author Posted October 9, 2003 Lucy's Story (27) Posted by Lucy on October 8, 2003, 23:52:42 Hi everyone! Thankyou for the simply overwhelming response to my Instalment 26! John, Fred, Erica, Jim, Stu and Sinkem all posted very interesting responses (several from some of them), and as always, trusty Spikesfan duplicated the instalment over on to MegaForums to join the other instalments as a permanent archive. Thank you Spikesfan. Well, I'm starting Instalment No. 27 on 8th October 2003, and here it is: Do you remember Mick, Velma's boyfriend? He was the one who played a prank on the art gallery visitors by making the rubber floor-protecting heel-covers higher than they really were. He eventually got the sack for carrying on that hilarious trick once to often, and then promptly got a shoe salesman's job in a big Oxford Street shoe shop. Well, once we had all moved to our London house, Velma was able to see much more of Mick, which was great for her. Also, sometimes Velma, Madeline and I would go shopping in Oxford street on Saturdays (our day off) and would visit Mick's shop to see him in full swing. As a good-looking guy, he was very popular with the shoe-buying girl customers, but he hadn't lost his sense of humour. If a very meek girl came in asking for little 2" kitten heels, he would deliberately emerge from the back carrying the highest pair of heels in the entire shop to the utter horror of the victim, but then he would say "Only joking!" and bring out the correct low pair from behind his back to the young lady's intense relief. Conversly, If a daring young lady asked for the highest heels in the shop, he'd have fun by keeping those behind his back and first offering them hopelessly low almost flat shoes to enjoy the expression on their face! Whenever one of his customers had just donned a pair a really high heels, he would look ultra-serious and say "Just check the heel-height by seeing whether you can walk right around the shop two or three times on tip-toe without letting either heel touch the carpet". He and we were inwardly chuckling merrily whilst the customer went round and round carrying out this charade. Another one was "You need to make sure you can balance on one leg for three or four minutes". At the end, he would again say "Only joking" in such a warm and friendy way that the girls loved it, and often came back before long to buy more shoes from him! Another of his favourite japes was to bring out two subtly mis-matched shoes. He would let them try a 3 1/2" heel on one foot and hand them a similar-looking style but in a 4" heel on the other foot, and enjoy watching them bobbing up and down in bewilderment. Or he would bring out a pair in the same style as each other, but with one shoe being one size smaller, and watch the customer trying to force it on! In every case he carried it off with such good humour that he succeeded in making them share the joke. Apparently a ghastly matronly lady had bought a pair of 4 1/2" heels the week before, especially to wear them to her cocktail party. Even when she came back whilst we were there and said disparagingly "I can't get on with these absolutely dreadful high stilts - I want my money back!", Mick handled her with the utmost grace and charm, and eventually succeeded in getting her to exchange them for a pair of lower heels rather than losing the sale altogether. Quite often, Velma invited Mick back to our New Cross house. We had some hilarious and also very interesting evenings as Mick regaled us with stories of his shoe-shop experiences. He always got particularly enthusiastic when groups of two or three or more ladies came in to getted fitted-out with identically matching high-heeled shoes. Apparently this happened surprising often, being necessary for stage performers (singers, dancers etc.) and also for air hostesses, cinema usherettes and other types of staff who were expected to wear identical uniforms. According to Mick, the interesting thing in that situation was the different reactions from different girls to the same model of shoe. If one girl liked say, a shoe with a 3 1/2" heel, one or two of the group would say it was "Much too high" whilst another girl would usually say it was "Far too low". Eventually a compromise concensus would be agreed, but sometimes resulting in one or two girls struggling with the chosen height, with others looking disgruntled at how low and easy-to-wear the same height was! The most extreme example of this was apparently when a twenty-strong ladies choir from Wales arrived in London to give a concert at the Wigmore Hall (near Oxford Street). At the mid-day rehearsal, the conductor had noticed how varied and ill matched their footwear was, ranging from stodgy flat lace-ups to mocassins to stack-heeled brogues. Hence it was agreed that they would all visit Mick's shop together, to see if they could find twenty matching pairs of smart, black shoes in all of their respective sizes "Say, about 2 1/2" heels?". As it turned out, after scouring through just about style in the shop, Mick found that the only model available in sufficient quantities to suite all their sizes was a shiny black patent plain leather court with a 9cm (a little under 4") stiletto heel. Again, some of the women looked very excited about the prospect of wearing those, whilst a handful were totally aghast! Anyway, in the end it was "Take it or leave it" because no other style was available in sufficient quantity. After Mike had succeeded in getting all 20 of them fitted-out (with one or two of them muttering that they had 'Never worn high heels before in their lives'), they finally looked at themselves in the shop's mirrors, and every one of them had to admit that they did look extremely smart and attractive. At the leader of the choir's suggestion, they all decided to leave their new heels on for the short walk back to the Wigmore Hall 'To get accustomed to them before the concert'. Mick said it was an incredible sight to see twenty ladies in shiny black brand-new unfamiliar stilettos heels all suddenly flood out into Oxford Street and make their way back up to the hall. All the clickety-clicking sounded like a bunch of horses cantering by! After singing in their concert, the choir must have stayed the night in London because the following morning several of the Welsh ladies came back into the shop in ones and twos asking to see Mick. Two of them said that although they had always been to timid to wear high heels before, it was WONDERFUL, and could they buy extra pairs of different styles for their own individual wearing. One even bought a pair of 4 1/2" heels "To please my husband"! Another lady said stilettos were too wobbly to wear in the choir's future concerts, so could Mick find her a similar style but with a thicker, more stable heel. Blade-heels did not exist in those days, but Mick found her some with waisted Louis heels for greater stability. Another lady brought her standard-issue stilettos back and was about to ask for a lower heel, when she had another look in ther shop's mirror at herself and decided at the last minute that the issued 9cm stilettos looked to good on her that she decided to keep them and persevere in getting used to them. Of course, some years after that, things changed in the world of pop groups etc. so that these days most singers etc. have co-ordinated but not identical clothes and shoes. however, in those days people adhered stricty to identical uniforms for certain things, so it did give rise to certain problems when those groups, choirs etc. were all expected to wear identical heels! I'd love to have seen all twenty of those ladies walking to the Wigmore hall in their matching skirts and their new, matching high heels! More soon! Love, Lucy
Spikes Fan Posted November 8, 2003 Author Posted November 8, 2003 Lucy's Story (28) Posted by Lucy on October 30, 2003, 22:23:14 Hi everyone! Sorry that this instalment has taken a while - things have been very busy at business! In the meantime though, thank you Spikesfan, Laurie and Stu for suggestions re. the eventual publication of these instalmants of my story as a complete book! This is my instalment No. 28 written on 30th October 2003: By the autumn of 1963 I had started seeing a nice boyfriend called Charles, a trainee London accountant. One weekend before the bad weather set in he invited me on a day-trip to Brighton on England's South coast. Neither of us drove, so we went by train. I wore a nice fawn-coloured dress and my latest pair of high-heeled shoes. They were gorgeous! They were dark-brown leather with slightly 'waisted' 4 1/2" heels which got very thin half-way down and then flared out slightly to about 1/2" diameter at the steel tips at the bottom. They were low-cut courts, and the toe-part of the vamp had a saucy open slit about 1" long running forward for towards the pointed toe, dividing the toe-upper into two, revealing what they now call some "toe cleavage". The leather was as soft a silk and caressed my feet to perfection! Charles was the perfect gentleman. Upon reaching Brighton, we started off with a visit to the wonderful Brighton Pavilion, with Charles opening all the doors for me to pass through(Click, click, click!). After a super lunch he suggested that we take a stroll up one of the two famous Brighton Piers, and I unknowingly agreed. Within moments of setting foot on the pier, OH! One of my high heels had gone down between the wooden planks of the pier and had stuck! Ever the gentleman, sweet Charles bent down and pulled at my shoe. The bottom of my heel flared out sufficiently not only to get stuck in the gap, but to make it very difficult to pull out again. Eventually he managed, and placed the shoe on the pier where it swaying from side to side waiting for me re-insert my foot into it. The thrill of putting on any very high-heeled shoe has never left me, so as I stood there in the sea breeze steadying myself by holding on to the shoulder of the kneeling Charles, it was a sexy moment for me as my foot slid down again into the so-soft leather. Giving him a "thank you" kiss, I held his hand as we resumed our perambulation along the pier, but within moments "Uh!" - my other heel had sunk into the pier and pulled off my foot. The faithful Charles again gallantly kneeled down, extricated the high heel from the boards and proferred it to my naked foot. This time I found myself enjoyed inserting my foot even more than the first time as he gripped the shoe to steady it. Needless to say, it soon happened a third time and I thought I noticed that Charles was starting to hold my rescued shoe more caressingly and intensely this time. However, he said "Look, should we not abandon this idea, the cracks in the pier are starting to scuff and scrape the leather on your wonderful high heels!". By now I was secretly enjoying myself more and more. All Charles' bending-down and fuss and attention and the foot-inserting was far outweighing the scuffing of my high heels, which I could always get re-covered. "No" I said, "Don't let my silly shoes spoil our walk to the very end of this famous pier and back!". Thus we continued, inevitably with the heel sinking and being rescued ritual being performed time after time after time. I have never forgotten it because it was having a strangely erotic and growing effect on me that I've never quite understood. Having to manipulate my high heels out of the cracks every few paces, and continuously offer them on to my feet, Charles appeared to be getting similarly aroused and flushed. Some onlookers were most amused by my high heels continuously getting stuck, but Charles was too involved in the whole thing to notice! By the time we reached the sheltered seating at the end of the pier, Charles and I were so aroused by those shared high heel sensations that we flung ourselves into the most passionate embrace that we had ever had! The only thing that cut this short was the pull of repeating the sensations on the way back down the pier again! You'd think getting a heel stuck would be irritating, but with Charles acting the perfect gentleman each time, It was all so sensuous! I don't know which of us enjoyed the whole thing more! In fact, it was somewhat with reluctance that we both approached "Dry land" once more and saw the heel-sinking coming to an end. However, as we stepped from the wooden planking back on to Brighton's hard pavements, a fresh sensation became apparent to me. When the plank-cracks had constantly yanked-off both shoes from my feet, the pulling must have stretched or distorted my shoes because they no longer gripped the back of my feet, instead slopping off-and-on, off-and-on. Because the toes of the courts had that open slit running half-way down them, they didn't grip my toes nearly as well as most court shoes, only the very last bit of the upper at the point of the toe remaining to give any grip. This allowed both shoes to swing hugely off-and-on my feet with every place I took. Being used to maintain ultra-smart standard with the high heels I work to the office, this felt slovenly, but as I adjusted to the sensation, increasingly erotic, especially as I became aware of Charles being hypnotised afresh by the wildly provocative slapping and slopping of those far-from-dull high heels! There was so little toe-grip that now and again one or the other would fall off altogether as I walked, and once more Charles would stoop down, rescue it and slide it back on to my foot. He was loving it! So was I! It was one of those memorable days that we both wished would never end! As we returned to London together, tired, somewhat footsore but ecstatically happy, we both agreed how dull the day would have been had I not worn those very special waisted-heel shoes! I promised Sinkem (loyal fan of my stories) that I would include a few more of my sinking-in-heels memories at some stage, but that's all for now. More Soon! Love Lucy.
Spikes Fan Posted December 10, 2003 Author Posted December 10, 2003 Lucy's Story (29) Posted by Lucy on December 7, 2003, 17:46:21 Hi Everyone! Thank you to Erica for responding to my Instalment No. 28a (Corns!) and to Eva for expanding and clarifying one of my points. And of course, a special thank you, as always, to dear Spikesfan for gallantly copying-across No. 28a on to Megaforums. Since you started preserving my stories there, I see they have now had nearly 2,000 visits! Apologies for the recent sparsity of my instalments – I’ve never known such a busy autumn at my business! Anyway, here we go with Instalment No. 29: 1963 was my first year living and working in London, and as the autumn grew colder and wetter, my flat-mates Velma and Madeline both asked me why I didn’t own any boots. I just didn’t! Probably because I just loved wearing my “Alps” and other stiletto court shoes everywhere so much. The previous winter of 1962/3 had been the worst since 1947, with interminable snow, ice and constant cold. However, I hadn’t needed boots then because it was only a few hundred yards daily walk in my stilettos along the cleared pavements and I reached the Business Academy. But the much larger amount of walking now needed in London was a different matter and I had already slipped badly on some icy patches more than once. Just by chance, Mummy rang up from my parents' Surrey town and said “Loo, I need some new boots. If I come up on the train this Saturday, will you take me to those nice London shoe shops you keep talking about?”. I duly met Mummy at Charing Cross and thinking we could both search for boots together, I eagerly found a taxi to take us straight to my beloved Regent Shoes in Wardour Street. Although Mummy has always been a most ardent fan of heeled shoes, she looked in consternation at the great selection of boots and said “But they’ve all got high heels! Where are the practical flat ones?” I was aghast! I couldn’t believe it was my very own Mummy saying this! She continued “Much as I love my shoes to have high stilettos for parties, special occasions and even for ordinary outdoor summer wear, boots are a different matter. They are practical items and should have flat, stout soles for good grip and a warm, comfy upper and leg!”. I could have sat down and cried at such a humiliating notion, and it was one of the few times in my life when I found myself totally at odds with Mummy – I could have throttled her! But instead I stoically put on a forced smile and steered her away from Regent Shoes gorgeously exotic boots and flagged down another taxi to Mike’s more general shoe shop in Oxford Street. Velma’s boyfriend Mike was a genius with all the ladies! He winked at me and craftily brought out and armload of all the WORST and frumpiest pairs of flat boots to show Mummy. Some had ghastly elasticated sides, other had awful sagging legs that furled around Mummy’s ankles and others looked only fit for mucking-out the dung on a farm. “Well” said Mummy “Maybe a teeny bit of a heel would save them from looking too awfully clumpy”. Mike winked at me again and came back with a stout pair of hide boots with the most DREADFUL clunky 2” heels I’d ever seen. “Oh no!” said Mummy “Perhaps the heel could stand being a bit higher and slimmer than that”. Eventually, Mummy chose a pair of passably elegant brown leather boots with fairly slim 3” stacked-heel knee-boots that she ended up being so delighted with, that she suggested I should plump for the same model as well. I tried them on to show willing, but after wearing very high-heeled shoes every day, I knew that 3” heels would feel almost as dowdy as flatties. Mummy’s consternation returned as I organised a return taxi to good old Regent Shoes, where I had spotted some super knee boots with the 4 ¾” “Alps” stiletto heel. “Sorry” said the assistant “None available in your size at present, but wait a minute!, we do have a superb pair of our custom-made boots just declined by an esteemed lady customer because we made them in the wrong colour. A wonderful boot, but the heel could well be too high for you at 5 ½ inches?” “5 ½ inches!” I gasped. I had never owned any shoes with heels over 5”, let alone boots! Mummy had started scowling in disapproval! “Well” I said tentatively “Maybe I could just have the tiniest peep?”. Oh! They were BREATHTAKING!!!!! Gorgeously thin, thin, thin, soft, soft, soft bottle green leather throughout, and the heels! – high, high, high needle-thin 5 ½” rapiers in a shiny rich dark-brown finish with copper-coloured metal tips. They reminded me of the heel-height that I had seen “Cleopatra” wearing in that very same shop and later when she won the beauty queen contest. “You can’t possibly hope to travel to work and back on those heels Lucy” snapped Mummy (she never called me “Loo” when she was miffed!). “Perhaps not” I murmered “But I’ve never seen anything so beautiful!”. I slipped my feet into them, zipped-up the long zips, tingled at the voluptuous feel of the kid leather enveloping my feet and legs, and gingerly stood up. Wham! I’d never felt a heel-thrust like it! Looking in the mirror, I saw that my insteps had been pushed right past the vertical! Oooops! Steady! Talk about precarious! It took virtually all of my muscle-power to adjust my body against pitching forwards on to my face! “There you are!” said Mummy “You can’t hope to walk properly. Let’s leave it.”. But I had GOT to have them! I needed them more than anything else in the world! What could I do? Yes! Eureka! I tried-on and quickly bought a pair of much cheaper black boots with with a comparatively modest 110mm (4 1/4") stiletto heel for "everyday" winter wear, I told Mummy I was also having the voluptuous 5 1/2 inchers to "Spoil myself". I had to make sure she couldn't see just how much of my earnings I was having to pay at the cash desk! However, the combination of the gloriously soft green leather and the gloriously high,high heels felt so heavenly that I could not bring myself to take them off, so I made the mistake of wearing the 5 1/2 inchers out of the shop. Before we even reached Leicester Square I realised that walking in that new height was so difficult! I had to go so slowly and take such small steps. And I couldn't suddenly stop! Due to the heel height, The toes of my new boots were somewhat tucked under my insteps instead of sticking out in front, so there was nothing there to plant forward if I wanted to avoid getting run over! It was a whole new challenge. Mummy also pointed out that I was having difficulty keeping both stiletto heels upright as I walked, with a triumphant "I told you so" tone of voice. "Well, give me a chance" I said, "It's my first time, and I haven't had any practice at home yet!". When I proudly showed Velma and Madeline my two new pairs of boots, they said the green ones were "Unbelievable!". Trouble was, as usual, Madeline had them on her own feet in seconds! Over the coming weeks, I was determined that I would master those incredible boots, and in the meantime I wore my other new black 4 1/4" stiletto boots to work every day, changing into my higher "indoor" court shoes when I got to business. The harder leather of the cheap pair of boots was unpleasant to walk in at first, because it was too stiff. It held my ankles immobile like a straight-jacket, whereas I like to "live" in my heels and feel them moving and swaying under me as I glide around. Mike suggested softening the boots by rubbing-in Neatsfoot Oil throughout - a good tip! It worked wonders, causing that pretty stiff leather to become so much better that it felt almost as soft as my very expensive bottle-green boots. Now I could really enjoy the feel of the heels on both pairs of new boots! Love, Lucy
Spikes Fan Posted December 10, 2003 Author Posted December 10, 2003 Lucy's Story (30) Posted by Lucy on December 10, 2003, 9:10:38 Hi Everyone! And what a super set of responses to my Instalment No. 29! It was so kind of Sinkem, Paul, Heelman, Stu and Laser. And such interesting comments – Thank you! To be surrounded by so many keen guys (even via cyberspace) at my age makes me feel that life is just beginning again! Still, I suppose I’m only a little older than Lulu, and she’s a great high heeled girl still going from strength to strength! So let’s get on with more of my reminiscences with my Story Instalment No. 30: Christmas 1963 was fast approaching; my first since starting work in London. My boss Ricky Everson handed each of us a letter from the managing director inviting us all to the firm’s staff Christmas party. It was to be held at the prestigious Connaught Rooms in Piccadilly in mid-December! We girls asked Ricky if we could bring guests, but he said sadly not because all the staff from the various London branches were also invited, and it would be a fairly massive attendance even without guests. “Well” I thought “Even without a guest, it will be a chance to rally-together our little ‘5-Inch Club’ including Maud, Freda and the rest to give the fellas some exciting shoes to look at!”. The same day that I received my party invitation, Mummy telephoned. She never rang me at work unless it was something urgent. “Come down here on the train as soon as soon as you can” She said, “And bring those bizarre green stilts with you”. She meant my new bottle-green knee boots with the 5 ½” brown stiletto heels that she had disapprovingly seen me buy only a week before. She rang-off leaving me wondering what on earth was the matter. Were she and Daddy planning some ritual burning of my disgraceful boots on a ceremonial funeral pyre in their garden? Well, still mystified when Saturday came round, I dutifully caught the train down South through the countryside. However, I didn’t travel wearing my maligned green boots because I had already ascertained that very frustratingly the 5 ½” heels were too high for me to wear out and about for any appreciable period of time. I have only got small size 5(UK) feet, and a 5 ½” high heel on me is in effect equivalent to at least a 6” heel on girls with larger feet! They felt very extreme. Instead I carried the green boots in a carrier bag and was met by Mummy at the railway station. Without any explanation she took me to the town’s most exclusive clothes shop, pointed at the window and said “Look Loo, a gorgeous leather coat in exactly the same bottle-green colour as your new boots! They’re just made for each other!” The coat looked like a million dollars! “But, but” I stammered, “I thought you didn’t like the boots”. “Loo” she said “Those boots are quite the most beautiful and fantastic that I’ve ever seen! When you first tried them on it was just that a twinge of jealousy overcame me because I can’t even get up into 5” heels let alone 5 ½”. I’m sorry if I went a bit ‘sour grapes’ at the time. But on you they looked out of this world, and having now spotted this matching coat, I couldn’t wait to tell you. It has even got a little brown fur trim on the collar matching the brown colour of the heels!” In a trice I was inside to try on the coat. “Put your boots on first” said Mummy, so I changed into them, again feeling the upward thrust of those incredible heels and having to adjust my posture to retain balance. The coat fitted perfectly. It was meant to be! The colour match of the bottle-green leather was perfect, and so was the length, coming down just far enough to cover the tops of my knee-boots. The effect of those tall green boots extending down from the matching leather coat and culminating in the sky-high brown stiletto heels was utterly stunning! Quite magical! Looking in the mirror, I couldn’t believe it was really me! Even my dark red-brown hair and ruby-red lipstick were hugely complimented by the leather coat’s green colour. The sales assistant and Mummy were both genuinely gobsmacked, and kept on looking me up and down from head to stilettos with their mouths open in admiration. At this point my bubble suddenly burst because I caught sight of the price ticket. “Oh, good grief” I wailed, “I could never afford this Mummy!”. “Happy Christmas Loo!” chuckled Mummy “Daddy and I agreed that if it fitted you, the coat would be your Christmas present!”. Before this had even sunk in enough for me to express any thanks, Mummy had paid in full for the coat and said “Come on Loo, keep the whole outfit on and come home with me to show Daddy!”. One devastating problem! In the sheer excitement of admiring the overall effect and buying coat, I had quite overlooked tha fact that the 5 ½” stiletto heels had been proving too high for me to master for outdoor use. But how could I possibly take the boots off again just as Mummy had especially got me the wonderful matching coat? No way! So with my insteps forced past the vertical and every muscle in my body feeling as though it were stretched to its very limit, I gingerly teetered all the way along the High Street (getting countless stares and admiring glances) trying to keep up with Mummy who was veritably sailing along in her usual 4” stiletto courts. It was so challenging! The 5 ½” heels began to feel like 6” heels and then 7” heels and then 8” heels as my taut muscles got more and more tired. I really didn’t think I’d make it all the way to my parent’s front door, but somehow I did, although my calves and ankles felt trembly toward the end, and my whole body felt the strain. Daddy opened the door to us, and I’d never seen his face look so impressed about anything! “Oh Loo!” he exclaimed “I’m speechless! You look TREMENDOUS! I’ve never seen you look so pretty or glamorous! Mummy had shown me the coat in ther shop window and had told me about your highest-ever heels, but what a combination!”. Having thanked them from the bottom of my heart for that simply perfect coat, I staying with them long enough to enjoy one of Mummy’s lovely meals after which I excitedly told them about my invitation to the firm’s Christmas party in London. “Oh good” said Mummy “The perfect occasion for you to give your new coat and boots a proper debut journey from your place to the Connaught Rooms and back!”. . . . . . . . . Ulp! More soon! Love, Lucy
Spikes Fan Posted December 19, 2003 Author Posted December 19, 2003 Lucy's Story (31) Posted by Lucy on December 14, 2003, 10:52:18 Hi again everyone! I’m overwhelmed by receiving an even bigger response than ever to my Instalment No. 30! It’s been so lovely to hear not just the odd word, but some very interesting in-depth responses from Spikesfan, Puffer, Paul, Sinkem, Heelman, Jim, Stu, Steve and Romu. Thank you all so much, and my special gratitude to Spikesfan for copying-across my last two Instalments to be saved for permanent viewing under “Stories” on MegaForums – now totalling 30 instalments covering 1956 to 1963! Well, straight on with my Instalment No. 31: Late 1963 shot towards by like lightning as we approached the Saturday in mid-December on which my firm’s grand Christmas dinner-dance party was to be held. I was getting quite nervous about dressing sufficiently well, knowing that the eyes of all the firm’s most senior people would be on me and the other two trainee managers. The week before, I had already bought a new outfit especially. I had already got the “travelling there” combination (the amazing green boots with the 5 ½” heels and the matching coat from Mummy and Daddy), and now I had bought the evening dress and shoes. I had previously ordered the shoes to be especially made for by Regent shoes – plain courts with very low-cut upper and toe, the slimmest of 5” stiletto heels for dancing in, and a mirror-silver finish throughout. In Regent Street I had spotted the most stunning evening dress imaginable! Midnight blue velvet, with a plunging neckline, the thinnest of shoulder straps and a classic body-hugging line. Unconventionally, I had the floor-length dress altered to just-above-ankle-length as I could not bear my dazzling, flashing new shoes to be hidden from view! I tried to plan everything. I would travel into central London wearing my green coat and (with some trepidation!) the matching mega-heeled boots. To save me carrying everything, My boss Ricky Everson kindly offered to take along my dress-bag containing my evening dress and shoes so that I could change into them upon arrival. To avoid my having to make a second long journey in those challenging boots, some friends of my parents had agreed to put me up for the night in their flat near Grosvenor Square, only a few streets away from the Connaught Rooms. So, late afternoon on the big day I duly set out on my usual route from the top of Telegraph Hill towards the long, long steep descent of Pepys’ Road leading down to New Cross Railway Station. But Oh Dear! As the flat top of the hill gave way to the descent, my elated mood changed to growing helplessness and panic. In my excitement, I had overlooked the fact that I had never tried going steeply downhill in my new 5 ½” heeled boots. I COULDN’T DO IT! Not even slowly! The hill-aggravated heel-height was pitching my insteps/legs/body so far forwards over the sole of the shoes that there was insufficient toe-length ahead of me to stop me pitching forwards on my face! The geometry just wasn’t there! I was unexpectedly stuck – stranded a short way down the long house-lined descent clinging grimly to a gatepost to stay standing. There were no taxis, no telephone boxes, no people on that chilly, darkening afternoon. Help! I’d got no other footwear with me and I dare not be late. For a short stretch I even tried walking down backwards, using the hill to reduce rather than exaggerate the heel height as I’d seen a few girls doing in similar difficulties in the past. I’d never felt so ridiculous! To cap it all I’d not gone far like this when I backed smack! into the thick trunk of one of the pavement’s plane trees. This shook me up no end and reduced me to further despair. I had to take off my glasses and wipe away some tears. In sheer desperation, I reluctantly resorted to my old trick which I had developed to help my go down short steep ramps and slopes in high heels – rolling my ankles inwards toward each other, inclining both stiletto heels inwards at about 45%. This markedly lessened the effective height of the heels and allowed me to carry on down the hill without being pitched forwards. It can be extremely humiliating being seen walking with one’s heels tilted right over like this, as I have seen other ladies do on occasions. I was particularly loath to do this to my new boots because I feared that that descending the full length of Telegraph Hill would distort them permanently, but I had no choice, I had to get there! The relief gained by tilting my heels like that was equivalent to changing-down into heels of about 4" instead of 5 1/2". Thank goodness, this enabled me to reach the bottom of the hill without toppling over, and it was with enormous relief that I reached the oh-so- welcome flatness of New Cross Road and click-click-clicked along to catch my train to central London. Emerging from Charing Cross Station, during the final walk through Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus, I was dismayed to find that my tilted-heel ruse had indeed caused some distortion to the boots, making the heels want to keep going inwards under me, even on the flat. However, at least I managed to keep them passably more upright than they had been, and if I am totally honest, the little bit of lean now seemingly imbued into the heels actually helped my cope with their extreme height for the remainder of the walk to the dinner-dance. As I teetered past Gilbert’s famous statue of Eros, one of the many youths that always seemed to be sitting on the steps of the plinth bellowed a deafening “Cor, look lads, with the altitude of her heels, where’s her oxygen mask?”. Huge guffaws immediately rang round Piccadilly Circus which seemed to bring every eye for miles swivelling round upon me and my mega-heels. I went bright red and all I could think do was to try and keep my leaning heels as vertical and possible and to walk the final short stretch with as much dignity as I could muster. As (at last) I entered the imposing foyer of the Connaught Rooms, a waiter immediately sprang forwards proferring a champagne-laden tray, and both Ricky Everson and the Mr. Graham the managing director were on hand to greet me with a courteous bow and kiss me on the hand. From the utter dejection of staggering down Telegraph Hill, I was instantly transformed into feeling like a duchess in a world of chandeliers and elegance! They both topped it off by saying that the finery of my green leather coat and boots made it seem as though royalty was sweeping in! I said jokingly “Hold on a minute, I haven’t even changed for the function yet!”. Ricky gallantly steered me towards the ladies’ section in which I could change, and fetched the bag containing my dress and shoes. I couldn’t wait to slip into them. I washed, donned new undercothes, clipped some fresh new nylon stockings on to my suspenders, donned my fabulous new velvet dress. Those were the days when most ladies still wore “real” jewellery. I put on my diamond earrings and diamond brooch, and Mummy had loaned me her wonderful diamond necklace and diamond bracelet. My hair wasn’t overly long at the time, but I pulled it all up off the neck and ears into a little “bunlet”, secured with a delicate little diamond-mounted Victorian hair-clasp. I freshened-up my bright ruby-red lipstick and nails, and lastly (always lastly!) I slipped my feet into those brand new specially-made flashing silver 5” stiletto courts, adjusting myself to the feel of the new heels. Oooh! So exciting! It seemed so strange and wrong-way-round to be changing down in height from outdoor to indoor heels (5 ½” to 5”), but the sheer beauty of those dazzling all-silver stiletto heeled shoes made me feel just like Cinderella at the ball! It was time to emerge! Love, Lucy
Spikes Fan Posted December 19, 2003 Author Posted December 19, 2003 Lucy's Story (32) Posted by Lucy on December 14, 2003, 15:39:49 I immediately loved the feel of my new all-silver court shoes. They had been so beautifully made for me by Regent Shoes using soft, top quality leather and their exotic pencil-thin 5” heels were perfectly set in relation to the shoe. Just before removing my glasses for the evening and entering the party, I checked myself in the mirror and could hardly believe it was me I was looking at! It was more like looking at a ravishing stranger from Paris-society fashion magazine! As I entered, my shoes sank in and decadently wallowed around in the thick, luxurious carpet. A magnificent eight-piece society band was already playing as we mingled for pre-dinner cocktails and several of the fellas from our central office team were already making a beeline towards me. Just then, to my delight, Maud and Freda and the other three of four members of our informal “Five Inch Heel Club” arrived in force. They hadn’t let us down! Even though I could only make out their shoes by shortsightedly peering through narrowed eyes, I could immediately see that ALL of them had put their very best and highest heels on, as we had excitedly plotted and schemed beforehand. Their dresses look gorgeous, ranging from black to purple to crimson to gold to white. All of them except me had their black shoes on – all the same 5” style from Regent Shoes! Although the fellas had seen some of those shoes before, they’d never seen them in their full glory with the lovely dresses and special party hairstyles and evening make-up. The fellas stopped short in their tracks and looked speechless! In fact, they all looked so smitten that they got quite embarrassed to walk the final few feet towards us to say hello! Needless to say, the entire evening was hugely enjoyable and an enormous success. My only sadness was that it came and went so quickly. The time just whizzed away! When the entire assemblage was seated for dinner, I was placed next to department head Ricky Everson, with the managing director only three of four seats away. Ricky looked me up and down and said the most wonderful things. He turned out to be married to a lovely wife and to have three super children , but it didn’t stop him showering me with compliments. He said my dress sense was every bit as magnificent as my work contribution! He said my diamonds were like shining stars against the background of my midnight blue dress which he likened to the loveliest night sky. He looked at my red-brown hair and said it was reminiscent of a magical cloud reflecting the after-glow of a romantic sunset, and looked down at my silver 5” heels and said they were like two long, thin silver comets flashing their way through the inky darkness of the sky! I had never heard such romantic thoughts, and I’ve remembered those words right up until this day. “Lucky Mrs. Everson!” I murmured to myself as I tucked into the excellent Christmassy dinner that was now before us! After the managing director’s inevitable speech welcoming all the contingents from the firm’s various branches throughout London and the suburbs, and praising everyone’s contribution to the success of the firm, the remnants of the meal were cleared away and the band changed up a gear from background music to signify that it was DANCING time! To my utter astonishment and disbelief, as the band struck up, the very first person that Mr. Graham chose to dance with was me! He shot over, asked me if I would care to do him the honour our joining him for the first dance, and off we went – first couple on the dance floor and sailing around like a galleon! Thank goodness that Mummy and Daddy were keen ballroom dancers and had nurtured me into the art. Mr. Graham, the perfect and dignified “City gent” with a military bearing and a pencil-thin moustache was a magnificent dancer despite his maturing years. Savouring the delicious feel of my new silver shoes and the gentle but so-assured lead of Mr. Graham, I allowed myself to be glided, spun, sashayed and cavorted around that wonderful ballroom. By the time the dance finished, I was in a euphoric dream, but became aware of a round of applause from the entire throng of nearly 200 guests! I thought they were just clapping Mr. Graham, but the bandleader was announcing “A well-deserved hand for the managing director and together with that young vision of loveliness!”. Before the end of the evening, Mr. Graham beckoned me over to sit beside him for a moment. “Lucy my girl” he said, “You may not think you’ve seen much of me since I first interviewed you for the job. In fact, this must be the first time we’ve actually spoken since. But that hasn’t stopped excellent reports of your progress from reaching my office on a regular basis. I liked the look of you then, and I like the look of you now. It seems that your business skills are just as spectacular as your dancing skills and your unforgettable dress and shoe sense! You’re destined for big things in the firm. Don’t tell your two fellow trainees just yet, but as from the New Year there’s a spot of advance promotion for you! You’ve earned it. Mr. Everson will give you the details before Christmas. Oh, and thanks for the best dance I’ve had in years – you glide around in those shoes like an angel!”. I couldn’t believe I was have such a wonderful evening in every sense. Luxurious dinner, surroundings and music, admiring and appreciative men and now some sort of job advancement! Just then my attention was drawn to the fellas and to the girls in our “Five-Inch Club” they wanted me to join their big circle formed to dance the “Hokey-Cokey”. Da-Da-Dee-Da-Da-DAH! (played the band) “You put your left arm in, your left arm out, in-out in-out shake it all about” etc. etc. After going through the various usual knees, hips, ears etc. The girls hijacked the commentary and shouted out “You put your HIGH HEELS in, your HIGH HEELS out, in-out, in-out, you wobble them all about” etc. and that fitting finale got the renewed attention and an enormous cheers and applause from everyone! It was hilarious, and we all strutted back to our tables lifting and kicking our high –heeled feet up towards all concerned. My shoes had looked and felt like a dream and I was proud of all the other girls in the 5" Club too! Love, Lucy
Spikes Fan Posted December 19, 2003 Author Posted December 19, 2003 Lucy's Story (33) Posted by Lucy on December 14, 2003, 15:52:15 What a memorable celebration! All too soon the last dance was over and it was time to change-back into my green coat and boots for the short taxi ride to my parents’ friends’ flat. But no taxis! Outside there was a vast queue of our guests already waiting, but London’s taxi drivers were hard-pressed because of the seasonal demand and very few were coming to our queue. “It’s not that far” I thought, “I’ll walk instead, despite these boots with their nigh-impossible heels”. So, now carrying my evening dress and shoes in the bag, I set out Westwards along Piccadilly and past the Royal Acadamy and Burlington Arcade. Was that an office friend trying to catch up with me? No, I must have been mistaken, There was no-one behind me that I recognised. As I passed the Ritz, I started feeling creepy as if someone was deliberately following me. “No” I thought “It’s my imagination. If take the next right turn towards my destination, they’ll go straight on along Piccadilly and I can stop fretting”. So I suddenly turned sharp right into Half Moon Street and scampered up there as fast as my wobbly 5 ½” heels would take me. But the footsteps didn’t carry on going straight past – they followed me round the corner. Now I knew the full fright and fear experienced by someone being FOLLOWED. These days they call it “Stalking” and I think there are laws and things. But then I just new I was being followed! Keep calm Loo! Trying to go too fast with tired, tired feet and ankles on those outrageous heels, I turned left into Curzon Street and quickly right into Queen Street. The footsteps did the same! “Yes, that's it!” I panted “I’ll double back! He can’t possibly risk give himself away by following suit”. So I turned West into Charles Street and doubled South down Irfield Street back towards Piccadilly. It was to no avail! Almost choking with terror I looked around to see a shadowy figure of a man relentlessly following my every twist and turn! Think Loo! The only hope was for me to try and reach my accommodation address before he reached me! Back into Curzon Street and completing a full circuit of that block, I cut back along Charles Street again, my breath coming in ever shorter gasps, my heart pounding and my feet, ankles and calves killing me. I turned North into Waverton Street knowing that our friends’ house was just past the far end, but despite my frantic scurrying, my follower’s footsteps were now closing on me very fast. I tried breaking into a run, but my mega-heels only permitted fast but tiny steps. “Hang on in there Loo” I gritted, and suddenly AAARGH! my left heel collapsed completely outwards, spraining my ankle and sending me spinning and crashing down hard on to the pavement! As my pursuer reared over me,I lay with my knees and my flinching face pressed hard into the pavement, instinctively using both arms to shield my head from the inevitable assault. Love, Lucy
Spikes Fan Posted January 12, 2004 Author Posted January 12, 2004 Lucy's Story (34) Posted by Lucy on January 8, 2004, 17:08:43 Hi Everyone, and Happy 2004! My astonishment and heartfelt thanks for receiving such an amazing number of postings in reply to Instalments 31,32 & 33 from Sinkem, Paul, Puffer (Puffer, I posted a second reply to you about ballroom dancing), Jim, Carl, Stu, Raincat, Heelman, Scuffy, Robert, Mario, Gunter (Hrrmph!), Laurie, Hank, Arno, Robbie, and of course Spikesfan who has been camping out in front of a bookshop waiting for this epistle! Thank you to all those who expressed concern about my wellbeing, and I apologise for being slow to submit this instalment due to having a very hectic Christmas 2003 visiting Mummy and various other friends and relations, and going down to Wiltshire for the New Year’s Ball. Anyway, it’s nice to be back home and back on Jenny’s Forum and here is Instalment No. 34. Shoes don't play a big part in this episode (sorry!), but the event proved to be a turning-point in my life in high heels: As my pursuer rushed up and towered above me, I lay sprawled face-down on the ice-cold pavement, my knees rammed on to the stone flags and my glasses being pushed painfully into my face as I cringed down in sheer and utter terror. As I sobbed in uncontrollable fright, I sensed the big man’s arm scything down at me and braced myself for the first almighty blow. But what was happening? I became conscious of the gentlest of touches caressing my shoulder and the very kindest of voices talking to me. My “assailant” was speaking in one of the tenderest, most sincere and beautifully spoken voiced than I had ever heard, a rich voice exuding compassion, concern and tenderness. “Oh this is so dreadful!” he said “Are you badly hurt? I must get you to safety. Where can I take you?”. For a little while I was too shocked and shaken to say anything at all, but then a flood of relief overcame me. I tearfully blurted that I was only trying to get to my parents’ friends’ house in the next street. “Come on then, my name’s Clarence and the least I can do is to get you safely there”. With the strongest but gentlest of arms he lifted me on to my feet, but my poor sprained ankle would not take any weight. Clarence sat me on the kerbside, unzipped and carefully removed my green leather boots with the 5 ½” heels and told me not to put any weight on my sprained left ankle. My fashion bag had gone flying, depositing my lovely new silver 5” high heels into the roadway, but Clarence gathered these up in one hand and put the other arm around my waist to support me as I limped along the remainder of Waverton Street in my stockinged feet. Considering that I had been fleeing from him only minutes before, I felt strangely reassured in his secure, manly hold. Within another five minutes were were at Nora and “Spider” Webb’s lovely cosy traditional London town house where I had arranged to stay for the night. Sydney “Spider” Webb was a retired professional colleague of Daddy’s and the couple had become very great friends of my parents. “Oh my gosh” said the Webb’s as they opened the front door and caught sight of me “Come on in both of you and let’s get Lucy on to the couch”. Clarence hesitated, but I beckoned him inside too, explaining to Nora and Spider that Clarence had rescued me and helped me walk with my injured ankle. It just didn’t occur to me to protest that it was Clarence’s fault that I had sprained my ankle running away from him, but in any case Nora caught sight of the 5 ½” stiletto heels on my green leather boots and called them “Ridiculous” and said that “You young whippersnappers must expect to sprain your ankles if you try to wobble along the street in stilts like those. In the 1920s we were considered too daring if we danced the Charleston in 2 ½” heels!”. Spider chipped in and said “Leave poor Lucy alone dear. She’s looking very white and shaken and is obviously in great pain”. “Oh gosh! I’m so sorry” exclaimed Nora “A really bad sprain can be more painful and serious than a break – I’ll prepare a cold compress immediately”. Nora had been a hospital nurse, so she gave my ankle the best of treatment whilst Spider asked Clarence whether he had enjoyed the staff Christmas ball. “This is tricky question” I thought. But to my surprise, Clarence answered “Yes!”. He told Spider and Nora that he was a senior catering supervisor at the Connaught rooms all that night and that he had noticed me dancing at the ball. After his duties has ended, he had started walking back home to his rented mews cottage near Marble Arch when he noticed me walking ahead of him through ill-lit streets. He had tried to catch me up to offer to walk me back in his safe company. He was most concerned when I started to run away through further sinister streets, and even more aghast when I fell over! He expressed his relief that I was now with caring friends, and said he should leave so that they could put me to bed. He shot me the tenderest and most admiring of glances and was gone! The following morning was Sunday and I awoke to the chimes of the Webbs’ grandfather clock. My ankle had swollen-up to resemble a purple field-hockey ball, but Nora brought me breakfast-in-bed and told me to stay put. As the morning sun streamed through the windows and I ate my soft-boiled-egg, I found myself re-living the adventures of the night before. The wonderful dances in my silver 5” stilettos, the compliments, the job promotion promises and then the nightmare walk and fall and Clarence’s “rescue”. Was Clarence a knight in shining armour who had born me to safety, or was he really a dangerous man who followed innocent young ladies struggling along in impossibly high heels? Would I ever know? I could not get him out of my mind. And he had gone so soon after helping me to the Webb’s. He’d vanished back out of my life, but for some reason I could not stop thinking about him and his gentle looks and voice. Even when the Webbs had helped me downstairs to sit and keep warm in the drawing room by their lovely coal fire, I couldn’t get Clarence out of my mind. Just then the door bell jangled. It was Clarence! My heart missed a beat. “Hello, I hope I am not intruding, but I could not let this morning pass without enquiring as to how poor Lucy’s sprained ankle is getting on”. Nora and Spider greeted Clarence, ushered him in and thanked him profusely for looking after me, and brought in coffee and biscuits before withdrawing to let Clarence and I chat to each other. Maybe I should have been furious with him for being the cause of my initial fright, but as he sat there in the morning light, I noticed how he looked even more handsome and kind than I had remembered from the previous night. Despite looking reassured when I said the ankle was not broken, he seemed somewhat distraught and preoccupied. “Look Lucy” he suddenly blurted out “I must tell you this. It wasn’t altogether true when I said I simply wanted to offer to walk you home safely. I had been following you from the ball because from the moment I first set eyes on you I have been utterly besotted! When the bandleader asked for applause for the vision of loveliness he was right! I couldn’t concentrate on the catering details last night because my eyes were fixed only on you. The way you sparkled and smiled at everyone, the poise of your head on that long neck, the way you glided to and fro in that evening dress and danced in those hypnotically high heels, and your whole personality! I’ve never come across anyone like you!”. My heart missed two more beats and I was dumbfounded! Clarence mistook my silence for disapproval and quickly said “Oh, I am so sorry, I should not have come here or said a word”. “No, no” I quickly said, “I’ve been thinking about you too. You’ve been so very kind and considerate. I was actually running away in case I was being followed by some lecherous man who had got the wrong idea from seeing my ultra-high heels (at this point Clarence’s face blushed a deep red) but it was such an enormous relief when you treated me with such kindness”. I continued “The Webbs have telephoned Mummy to tell her about my ankle, and Daddy will be taking me down to Surrey to recuperate at their home over Christmas before I return to my London job (and a promotion) in the New Year”. Without even thinking it through properly, I heard myself adding “Here is my telephone number if you’d like us to meet up in January”. It was only after he’d gone that I thought “Was that wise?”. Love, Lucy
Spikes Fan Posted January 18, 2004 Author Posted January 18, 2004 Lucy's Story (35a) Posted by Lucy on January 18, 2004, 0:40:59 Hi Everyone! The valiant Spikesfan has done it again(!) - he’s copied-across my Instalment 34 on to MegaForums “Stories” section – thank you so much! And my thanks to the HUGE number of corresponders then and since: Roger, Laser, Sinkem, Paul, Erica, Stu, Marc, Mario, Arno and Robbie, plus Chris asking about her heel-leaning problem and even some dubious posts from Gunter and Carl. It was sweet of the rest of you to rally round and defend me against those – I really appreciated that. Some of you even worried that it would put me off from continuing my story, but they were the first unpleasantness in the many months that I have been writing for your all, so as long as the vast majority of you seem to like reading my memories of my life in high heels, I hope to keep going! Here is Instalment 35. I’ve split into into parts a) and because as one posting it was too long to be accepted: As Christmas 1963 approached, Daddy duly drove up to London and collected me and my sprained ankle from the Webbs’ town-house in Mayfair, thanking them for looking after me so well. Before taking me down to Surrey to spend Christmas with my parents, Daddy drove me down to South-East London to collect sufficient clothes and bits and pieces from my house which I rented with Velma and Madeline. Both of them were aghast when they saw my purple ankle which was now up like a balloon. “Oh my gosh!” said Velma “That could just as easily have happened to either of us because we’ve both been wearing our highest stiletto heels for our own staff parties and other pre-Christmas celebrations, haven’t we Madeline?”. Madeline nodded gravely, nervously rocking her own inevitable purple 5 ½” stiletto courts from side to side a little, but I said “Well no, it really only happened because I got unnecessarily frightened in the dark streets, and tried to run away from an apparent pursuer” and I told them all about Clarence and how he turned out to be soooo dishy! They listened wide-eyed spellbound as I related all my recent adventures until Daddy said “Come on Loo – get the last of your things together because it’s time we got you down to Surrey”. I had the humiliation of grabbing a few pair of dreaded flatties and slippers to nurse my sprain and a suitcase of clothes, and off we went. Christmas 1963 was so BORING! Bless there hearts, Mummy and Daddy made me very welcome at their home and did their best to entertain me in every way, but despite Mummy’s lovely Christmas cooking and plenty of card games and chess, lying around with my ankle propped up for days on end was so frustrating! Boxing day was more interesting because Mummy had a bright idea. “I know Loo” she said, “Even though you can’t wear your high heels just yet, you can help me have a shoe-sort! You can lie there whilst I bring down my entire collection of shoes, plus all of your own ones that you’ve left here with us. We’ll decide which ones to throw away, which to keep, and which need attention”. That bucked me up! It was lovely to see all of Mummy’s many high-heeled shoes starting to appear in rows on her drawing room carpet. Then all of my left-behind ones began appearing over to one side. The floor was virtually covered in pair of high heels. I’d never seen the ‘family collection’ all together in one big spread, and they looked simply wonderful! “Oh look Mummy!” I said “You’ve kept your very first pair stilettos your ever bought – the brown 4” ones that I misappropriated for the class dance and ruined by wobbling horrendously in them”. “Yes” laughed Mummy “That’s one of the pairs that I will never part with because of all the happy memories that they bring back”. I was intrigued to see that she had still kept some of her pre-stiletto high heels of the 1940s and early 1950s. The 1940ish ones looked very frumpy with thick-heels and high uppers, some of them being lace-ups (I hadn’t heard the term “Oxfords” in those days). Some of the later 1940s and early 1950s ones were much more attractive. The heels were getting higher and less chunky. One or two of them had waisted (‘hour glass’) heels in a Louis style, whilst others had an elegant taper to quite a slim base of an inch or less and looked about 4” high. I asked her “When did you start wearing fairly high heels?”. Mummy said “Well, when we got married in the 1930s, I had nothing except lowish heels. However, during the war, two or three times I saw King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (mother of the present Queen Elizabeth) inspecting the bomb damage caused by the German blitz. Although they were coming to look at piles of rubble, she wore some MARVELLOUS heels! She was very short, but those super high heels (probably about 4 ½”) made her look taller and a lot more regal! They made a big impression on some of us onlookers, and I thought that if it made her look so much more elegant it could do the same for me!. I immediately loved the elevated feel that those high forties heels had, and I bought those various pairs that you see here. The next big impact was when stiletto heels suddenly arrived in the shops for the first time in the mid 1950s. Stiletto heels gave a whole new lease of life to my high heel wearing – they suddenly made me feel twenty years younger than I had felt wearing the clumpier forties heels.” I was fascinated hearing Mummy saying a lot of this for the first time. My eyes roved along the rows of shoes with Mummy’s usual heel-height of 4”, when suddenly she noticed my look of surprise when I noticed three pairs of much higher heels that I had not seen before “Oh!” she said, starting to blush. “Daddy bought these for me at various times, but they are all too high for me to wear outdoors”. I was most curious. She must have been wearing them indoors for Daddy when I wasn’t around! The stiletto heels were all at least 5” high, two being black patent courts, and one being a navy blue slingback style. The things we learn about our parents! In the end, we didn’t get much sorting-out done because neither of us could bear to throw any of our lovely high heels away! Continued in 34( Love, Lucy
Spikes Fan Posted January 18, 2004 Author Posted January 18, 2004 Lucy's Story (35b) Posted by Lucy on January 18, 2004, 0:29:50 Ricky Everson had said that I needn’t report back for work until my ankle was sufficiently recovered, so I stayed with my parents until the first week of January, 1964. In due course Daddy motored me back up to my London home on Telegraph Hill near New Cross. It was super to resume house-sharing with Velma and Madeline again. They were always very competitive with me regarding who was wearing the best high heels. Despite me being out-of-the-running with my ankle, Velma immediately made me envious by showing me a pair of stunning Italian high heels that her parents had bought for her whilst out in Italy over Christmas. They were so slinky! The pencil-thin black patent stilettos heels were 5” high and the toe band was yellow ochre in colour, but with thin black straps behind the foot and over the instep. Velma was wearing them all over the house mule-fashion with the ankle straps undone and flapping and trailing everywhere. Talk about attracting attention to them! Madeline was very kind and bandaged-up my angle everyday to give it strength. She said Clarence had telephoned several times to ask me out on a dinner date! Clarence had been in my thoughts a lot over Christmas and I accepted his dinner invitation very gladly. My ankle being only partially recovered, Madeline lent me a pair of her 2 ½” Audrey Hepburn style kitten heels. As I stepped from the taxi to meet Clarence in the restaurant, immediately he eagerly gazed down at my feet and I noticed that thgen his face appeared to fall rather. However, he was as good-looking and courteous as I had remembered, and we had a memorable meal and hit it off very well on our first proper date together. But underneath all his charm and excellent manners, I thought I detected an underlying insecurity or nervousness, or was it my imagination? During the meal, I learned that he had only been subcontracted to the Connaught Rooms caterers for a limited period, and that within a week he would be going “On the boats” and sailing from Southampton to New York as a catering officer on one of Cunard’s transatlantic liners. “Oh” I gasped, “No sooner have we met than I won’t be able to see you any more”. “No, No” he chuckled, it’s only five days crossing the Atlantic each way and two days at each end ad infinitum. I’ll be back for two days every fortnight! Oh, and Lucy, before we part tonight, can you please tell me your shoe size?”. Love, Lucy
Spikes Fan Posted January 23, 2004 Author Posted January 23, 2004 Lucy's Story (36) Posted by Lucy on January 21, 2004, 13:36:54 INSTALMENT 36 Hi Everyone! A big “Thank you” to those who responded to my Instalments 35a/35b – Spikesfan, Paul, Stu, Sinkem and Erica, and a big “Welcome” to new repliers RPM and Anita C! My eternal gratitude to gallant Spikesfan for his skills in copying-across those episodes to join all the others on “MegaForums” under “Stories”. I had a LOVELY SURPRISE last weekend! Fred posted to announce that Workman Publishing have produced a wonderful Shoe Calendar for 2004. See http://www.workman.com/catalog/pagemaker.cgi?0761130411. It has a shoe picture for each day of the year. The picture for 29 December 2004 there is a picture of a 5.1” Yellow Stiletto shoe with a blue bow from REGENT SHOES of London. Fred made my week, because as he said, Regent Shoes featured largely in my life and in many episodes of my Stories! The thought of Fred finding that modern calendar with a picture of the Regent Shoes 5" stiletto style is MARVELLOUS! It is probably the same style that I bought in white and wore at Little Canada Holiday Camp and loaned to the younger girl who entered the beauty contest. Later I bought the same style in black patent and other colours. Do you know, it's so sad - these days in London when I mention "Regent Shoes of Wardour Street", most people have never even heard of it and don't know it even existed. And yet in the 1960s it was the "Mecca" for London high heel enthusiasts and seemed to be at the centre of the Universe for me! Fred is offering that shoe picture for possible inclusion on the Forums. Wouldn’t it be great if it could illustrate my appropriate Story? It seems particularly apt that it was FRED who found that picture, because back in the spring of 2003, I happened to submit a small post on Lucy’s message-board to say that I used to buy some shoes called “Alps” (4 3/4" heels) from Regent Shoes. It was Fred who replied with some questions, and I thought the best way of replying was to recount my early days in high heels, and thus “Lucy’s Story” was born. So a double “Thank You” Fred!!! Here’s Instalment 36: As mid-January 1964 approached, my ankle was well enough for me to return to work, but wait for it …….initially only in (horror of horrors) flatties! Mummy had done her best to help. Before I left Surrey, she had bought me the nicest flatties we could find – black leather courts with very low-cut uppers and toe and 1 ½” heels with slightly scalloped-in sides. So wearing those, and with shame written all over my face, I reported back for work to our headquarters in Holborn. As I entered the office, Ricky Everson and the gang gazed at me in astonishment. “You look so different” said one of the girls “You just don’t seem like our Lucy without your skyscraper heels!”. It was meant as a compliment, but it only compounded my humiliation! “Come on” said Ricky “Let me take you in to Mr. Graham – that’ll cheer you up!”. Managing director Mr. Graham courteously welcomed us into his huge office and waved us into expensive leather-bound chairs. After enquiring about my ankle, Mr. Graham said “Lucy, you’ve done so very well in every way since joining us about four months ago, that Mr. Everson and I have decided to promote you unusually quickly”. The firm operated a chain of estate agents scattered throughout London and the outskirts, and I had been visiting them all to get to “Know the ropes” whilst running errands, delivering and collecting papers and files and assisting with any problems at the branches. Mr. Graham explained that they were doing increasing amounts of business with other firms of estate agents outside London who wanted their properties re-advertised within London itself a vice versa. “This calls for someone to visit each of these firms and to liaise with them to co-ordinate and develop this joint-promotion strategy. You are our lady! I am creating a new post for you, giving you a substantial pay rise, and promoting you to External Liaison Manager. Welcome to the Management Team!”. Ecstatic wasn’t the word! I don’t know how I stopped myself from diving over Mr. Graham’s desk to give him a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek! At 5pm I whizzed home as fast as my ankle would take me to gush out the news to Madeline and Velma, and to use our recently-installed new telephone to ring my parents. Madeline almost fell off her stilettos in amazement and Mummy and Daddy were thrilled to bits. To cap it all, that evening a telephone operator rang “Is that New Cross 2954? You have a gentleman calling long-distance call from Southampton”. It was Clarence! He was ringing from a connection on board the great Cunard liner before it set sail for New York. Almost before he could say anything, I blurted out the news of my promotion to managership. “Lucy, that’s wonderful!” he said. “I’ll see if I can bring a little something back for you as a celebratory present!”. Minutes later he said goodbye for twelve never-ending days. For my first new managerial assignment, I was sent north of London to an agency in Hitchin in Hertfordshire. By lunchtime, I had successfully taken on a portfolio of suberb Hertfordshire country houses on offer including a couple of mansions. Mr. Graham was going to be delighted! Upon re-emerging into Hitchin’s shopping streets (still frumping along in my flatties) I witnessed a most unexpected bit of high-heel entertainment. A woman of about thirty emerged from a lunch-restaurant wearing what looked like brand-new beige court shoes with 4” stiletto heels. On the pavement she was met by a loudly-spoken gentleman who seemed to be her husband and they began walking just ahead of me. “Hello dear” he said, “I see you’ve succeeded in taking the plunge this morning – your first venture into high heels! They look simply terrific, but how are you getting on in them?”. The lady then proceeded to give a fully detailed run-down (complete with demonstrations) of all her reactions upon wearing serious heels for the first time. “Oh” she said, “The split second I tried these on I felt so elevated and elegant (here she started exaggeratedly walking on tip-toes) that I found myself wishing that I’d had the courage to go into high heels years ago!”. At this point I put on my glasses to enjoy the show properly, and ‘Hubby’ told her she indeed looked elevated and elegant. “But I nearly didn’t buy them because on the shop’s thick carpet I found that the shoes were so wobbly because of the thin stiletto heels”. At this point she deliberately started demonstrating violent heel-wobbles as the walked, almost coming a cropper and visibly alarming ‘Hubby’, “But outside on the firmer flatness of the pavement I am getting more used to controlling them, although it’s still a bit scary – quite exciting, in fact!”. By this time ‘Hubby’ (and me) were both riveted to this practical dissertation. She continued “Yes, but I’m noticing another worrying thing, the high heels make my knees stick forward (whereupon she walked semi doubled-up with her knees very bent and thrust forward like an overdone Groucho Marx impression) and I’m not sure if that will look very nice”. At this ‘Hubby’ reassured her that on the contrary, she now looked like the best girl in the Universe. “Oh good” said the new high-heeler, getting more and more into her subject “But another thing, although the height of the stilettos made me feel very elegant whilst I stood there in the shop, once I was walking all round the town this morning, they made me feel as if I was sort of loping along – as if my foot was having to sort of climb down over the steepness of the shoe to meet the ground at each new step” whereupon we were treated to a sort of bow-legged John-Wayne-in-cowboy-boots impression! “And it was worse still trying to walk down that hill back there” she said, and promptly did an even more hilarious impression of John-Wayne-goin’-down-into-a-very-steep-canyon! “Well …..” said ‘Hubby’, only to get cut off by “But I found the solution – it’s great – SMALL STEPS” she shrilled out triumphantly, attracting the attention of various passers-by, and she proceeded to mince along for the next two or the minutes doing farcically small little steps, raising a pair of very limp wrists up in front of her like a begging dog and balancing/teetering along with her bottom wiggling in time with the tiny paces. “See - Now I can do it without loping!”. It was all so hugely entertaining that by this time I was having to stop myself from exploding with laughter and sheer glee. Her demonstrations were fantastic, and she was ENJOYING her new high-heel experience so much, and so was ‘Hubby’ and so (secretly) was I! But OH NO!, just then they arrived at a car, got inside and drove off in a trice before she could treat us to any further antics. From that day to this, I’ve often tried to imagine what other reactions and demonstrations would have been forthcoming had they not reached their car so quickly! I was chuckling about it to myself all the way back to London, and that even I was bursting to tell Velma and Madeline all about it. They collapsed in mirth, and were not content until I had put a pair of my highest stilettos on for a few minutes (despite my poorly ankle!) and demonstrated every one of her hilarious capers in full, walking up and down our front hallway as I did do. It ended up with Velma opening a bottle of wine (ostensibly to celebrate my first day business management) and all three of us rampaging back and forth around the house doing our “Hitchin High Heeler” set of impressions in our highest stilettos, finally collapsing on to the settee in uncontrollable laughter. It put the full recovery of my ankle back by some days, but it was worth it! It remains one of my most memorable days ever for two completely different reasons! Love, Lucy
Spikes Fan Posted January 28, 2004 Author Posted January 28, 2004 Lucy's Story (37) Posted by Lucy on January 26, 2004, 10:32:05 Hi again all! My thanks to repliers to Instalment No. 36: RPM (welcome Revolutions Per Minute!!), Erica, Paul, Stu, Fred, Laser, Sinkem and Scuffy, and thank you Spikesfan for copying the instalment from Jenny’s Forum on the Megaforums “Stories” section. Thanks also to Megaforums repliers Bubba, Anita, JeffM, PJ, Richy, Stylettos and Warren. Here’s Instalment 37: By mid-January 1964, I was experiencing mixed emotions. Half of me was elated at my promotion (it was going brilliantly!) whilst the other half was missing Clarence who was nearing the other side of the Atlantic. My sprained ankle was now recovered sufficiently to just about cope with 4” heels, but I avoided anything higher for a bit longer. I realised how much I had been missing my heels! Although back up to 4” stilettos, I took it very slowly and steadily on my way to work, taking very careful steps and avoiding uneven surfaces. As I proceeded like this, I overheard one older woman saying to another “See, there’s another young lady who can hardly walk in those modern contraptions. Look how slowly she has to walk!”. “Yus” said the other one, “See wotchermean!”. I smiled hugely to myself, wondering what they’d think in normal times when I’d be veritibly whizzing past them in my 5” Regent Shoes at three times the speed that they could manage in their depressingly beaten-up elasticated flatties! The following evening at home, an American telephone operator rang saying we’d got a transatlantic call from New York. It was Clarence! “Hello Lucy” he said. “We’ve just tied up at Pier 92, Manhattan, at the bottom of West 52nd Street. Couldn’t wait to phone you! It’s so spectacular! We sailed past the Statue of Liberty with the New York Skyline in front of us and the Empire State Building dominating everything. I and two of the other new catering officers are planning to go up to the very .... but hey, that’s enough about me, I’ve had a great idea for you. When I get back to England in a week’s time, you’re invited round to my mews cottage. I’m going to put my professional catering skills to the test a cook you a bumper meal to celebrate your promotion and my return! And bring your two house-sharing gilfriends with you too. What do you reckon?”. Well, I reckoned! “That sounds wonderful” I breathed “Oh Clarence, please hurry back”. Velma and Madeline were mightily excited and impressed, even though they hadn’t met Clarence yet. I couldn’t wait for the days to pass! At last the big evening arrived. Inevitably, Velma put on her new Italian 5” stilettos and Madeline was still inseparable from her 5 ½” court shoes, even though she was never to master them entirely. For the first time since my sprain, I exceeded 4” and put one of my many pairs of “Alps” with the 120mm heels. Oooh, it was so nice to have a proper lift under my feet again for the first time in weeks! Armed with Clarence’s directions, we made our way towards his little rented home north of Marble Arch. Finding a terrace of tall London town houses (reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes in nearby Baker Street) we spotted a typical coaching archway set into the terrace, through which we walked to enter the old rear mews lane. The little cottages lining it on either side had originally consisted of stables for the townhouses on the ground floor with haylofts and storerooms overhead. It had become highly fashionable to convert these into little one and two bedroomed bijou mews cottages. Oh, but how stupid of me not to think – the surface of the entire stable-lane was utterly treacherously - rounded original cobblestones(!), and the numbering indicated that Clarence was at the far end! You’ve never seen such a pantomime! Mindful of my poorly ankle, I edged along the side, steadying myself against the cottage frontages and trying to walk in tip-toes using only the broad toe-box part of each shoe and not putting any weight on my stiletto heels. Velma and Madeline teetered, tottered and wobbled down the middle in their stilettos, clutching on to each other for grim death, letting out various little nervous giggles and squeals. Madeline’s heels, wobbly at the best of times, were flying inwards and outwards in all directions, whilst Velma’s slightly lower 5” Italian heels were even slimmer and kept getting stuck between the cobblestones. Any notion of the three of us arriving at Clarence’s looking suave and composed was destroyed by our having to run that unexpected gauntlet. As we came upon Clarence’s front door, already dishevelled and giggling, Madeline said “Ooh look! A shiny brass doorknocker in the shape of a high –heeled shoe”. “Ooh yes” said Velma as a rapped the heel of the brass shoe against the door, “Maybe this is Clarence’s way of reminding his high-heeled visitors of their ordeal across the cobbles!”. Hence Clarence being nonplussed upon opening the door to find three females chuckling helplessly. “Well hello, and do come in” said Clarence, bending forward to give Velma and Madeline a peck on the cheek followed by a hug and a fully-blown kiss for me. The door opened straight into the sitting /dining room which was was entirely candle-lit …… a magical fairyland! Clarence had laid-up the central table as if for a Queen’s banquet. On the rich tablecloth was gleaming cutlery, wine-glasses, flowers, shining candlesticks, condiments and ruby red napkins. Pausing only to beam at us and pour us all a glass of dry sherry, Clarence said “Make yourselves at home” and shot behind into the kitchen. “Oh Wow” breathed Madeline “He’s so handsome, Lucy!”. “Dead dishy!” agreed Velma, rolling her high heels from side to side as she always did whenever excited. “Ooh, look on the wall – Marilyn Monroe” said Madeline. It was a big framed picture – the now-famous one of Marilyn getting her skirt blown upwards over the subway vent whilst perching on fabulous slingbacked high stiletto-heeled sandals. We’d never seen it before, so it made a big impression on us (as it obviously had on Clarence!). Just then he emerged with the first of three wonderful courses – oysters and wholemeal wafer-toast. “Ah! Isn’t Marilyn’s outfit gorgeous” he enthused “But I see that by the looks of it, I’m privileged to be in the company of three delectable girls wearing even higher heels that Marilyn’s”. We all looked down, and back at the picture, and it was true! We felt like a million dollars! Take my tip – if you fancy being treated to the best dinner in the world – befriend a top catering officer! It was unforgettable! The oysters were followed my a small sorbet (sherbet in the US) “To freshen the palette for the main course”. Then in was pushed a small dinner-wagon bearing sizzling roast legs of beef, pork and lamb, plus plates of the most exotic vegetables imaginable. Clarence expertly carved our choices of meats and silver-served everything to the plates of his three stunned, astonished guests, deftly pouring each of us a superb glass of vintage French red wine. How on earth he managed to do all that whilst also sitting and eating with us, I’ll never know. The main course was swiftly followed by a “Clarence Special” home-made cherry pie and custard, before we finally relaxed over the cheese-and-grapes board and a glass of Clarence’s favourite port. “And now Lucy” said Clarence “A little something from New York from me to you!” and the other two girls watch open-mouthed as Clarence handed me a prettily-wrapped parcel looking suspiciously like the size and shape of a shoe-box! More Soon! Love, Lucy
Spikes Fan Posted February 1, 2004 Author Posted February 1, 2004 Lucy's Story (38) Posted by Lucy on January 30, 2004, 3:42:54 Hi Everyone! Hi to Randy & The Boyz and thank you to my latest repliers Erica, Sinkem, Spikesfan and Paul, to Puffer for setting-up the “Guess Lucy’s Present” competition and to competitors Puffer, Paul, Spikesfan, Mario, Heelfan and Stu! I roared with laughter at some of the suggestions, but I’ll leave quiz-setter Puffer to judge the competition in the light of my new Instalment 38: With Clarence’s candles throwing a glow on to our faces and casting our shadows on the to walls of his lovely room, I reached out with trembling fingers and took the wrapped present from Clarence. On top was a card showing Cunard’s ‘Queen Elizabeth’ sailing into New York and a message saying “A million, million apologies for causing the Best Girl in The World to sprain her ankle, but here’s a little physiotherapy for it!”. Removing the ribbon which had been tied into a wonderful bow, I teased off the lid and lifted out the contents as Velma and Madeline looked on in awe. I had never seen anything like this! Balancing on the palms of my hands was a pair of shoes quite unlike any other. They were magical! The beautifully-styled court uppers were a deep, deep, glowing blue with a metallic sheen which moved and stirred and shined and danced at us. But the heels! The heel-height was only about 4 ½” (although I suppose that’s very high by most girl’s standards), but they were needle, needle thin! “Oh Wow!” said Velma and Madeline simultaneously. “Yes, aren’t they thin!” said Clarence, “3 millimetres to be precise – the maker claims that it’s the thinnest wearable stiletto in the World and that it’s only possible due to being made of titanium (was it?) or some such metal”. I was speechless at their beauty! The gleaming all-metal heels were anodised in a sort of transparent light blue colour which looked astonishing set below the shimmering dark blue uppers. “Well come on then – put them on Loo!” said Velma, unable to contain herself. “Oh dear!” I stammered to Clarence “I’ve just spotted the size 7 printed on the underside. I’m sorry, but they are two sizes too big for me. They’ll never fit!”. “Ha Ha” chuckled Clarence “They assured me that American sizes are about two sizes larger than ours, and they’d fit you perfectly”. “Oh fiddlesticks!” spat Velma, “I take sevens, and for one ecstatic moment I though those fantastic shoes would end up on my feet!”. I placed the wobbling shoes on Clarence’s carpet and slid my feet into the beautifully styled little toe-boxes. Oooh! Although not as high as some of my pairs of heels, these had such a special feel to them – so sensuous with those unbeatably precarious heels. In actual fact, they were just a little big and loose on my feet, but I didn’t want to spoil Clarence’s pleasure by saying so. I needn’t have worried – he had become hypnotised! I took a little walk, doing a couple of circuits of the dining table, quickly discovering that these shoes were the most challengingly wobbly and unstable inventions yet devised by mankind! The girls giggled at my odd wobbles, but I couldn’t resist plunging towards Clarence, throwing my arms around him and saying “Oh they’re so beautiful! It’s the nicest present anyone has ever given me! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”. Coming out of his trance, Clarence beamed hugely, fetched in coffee and cointreau liquer for us all and regaled his admiring female trio with fascinating stories of life on board the Queen Elizabeth, the world’s largest ocean liner, and his adventures in New York. When he had walked from Pier 92 up West 52nd Street to Broadway, he hadn’t realised he was already standing in Times Square because he was looking for actually square like London’s Trafalgar Square. Being used to London’s helpful policemen, he approached a pair of New York cops twiddling their batons and said in his best Englishman’s voice “Excuse me officers, could you be so kind as to direct me to Times Square?”. One replied “A wiseguy, huh?” and the other one said “You oudda your tiny mind? Don’t bug the cops!”. Clarence promptly realised that he needed to make some cultural adjustments ‘pretty damn quick’! He and some fellow officers from the ship then went up to the top of the Empire State Building, and in the evening they had been to Radio City Music Hall (an enormous theatre seating thousands) to see the famous Rockettes dancers high-kicking in their high heels. “Mind you” said Clarence, “Their shoes looked positively low and clumpy compared with the fantastic shoes that you three lovely ladies turned up in tonight!. Do you mind if I have a proper look at them?”. Reluctantly, I temporarily removed my amazing new thin heels (I had already named them “Pin and Needle”) in order to join Velma and Madeline in showing-off our own normal stilettod footwear to Clarence. As he sat on his settee, hands clasped behind his head, we stood up – Velma in her 5” Italian sandals, Rita in her Regent Shoes 5 ½” purple courts, and me in marginally lower heels (because of my not-quite-better ankle), my 120mm “Alps” black patent courts. “Come on” I said, “A fashion parade for Clarence” so one behind the other we did three of four circuits around Clarence’s dining table. As we teetered and minced round and round, we became increasingly aware of his eyes becoming totally transfixed on our very high heels. He was following our every footstep. Starting to enjoy the dramatic effect we were having, Madeline said “Catwalk flipping girls!” so we all began exaggeratedly flipping our stiletto heels inwards towards the end of every pace. That sent Clarence simply bursting with excitement! As if that wasn’t enough, Velma said “Hold on just a minute”, and undid the ankle straps on her Italian stilettos, allowing them to flap around like mules, held on only by their toe-straps, as she did at home. That finished-off Clarence completely! As we glanced over towards the settee, he was having complete apoplexy! I’d never seen anyone’s face look so flushed and mesmerised. I suddenly got quite worried, shot over to put my arm around him and cried “Oh Clarence, are you alright?”. At that he began pulling himself together again, gave us all a bemused beam and said “My goodness girls, I just can’t tell you ……you three are just too much!”. “Well Clarence” I chuckled, “I think that’s quite enough excitement for you for one night! You calm down on the settee and have another coffee, but I’ll make it this time”. With that, I changed back down into my new “Pin and Needle” shoes and found my way into Clarence’s sweet little kitchen. But oh dear! I was stuck into the floor! My needle stilettos had sunk straight down through Clarence’s lovely expensive linoleum and into the soft wooden floorboards underneath. I couldn’t move! With difficulty I managed to prize one heel out of the floor and then the other, but each time I took a pace forward I was sinking down again! “Help, Clarence” I hollered. He came rushing in and I said how sorry I was to be spoiling his lovely kitchen floor. To my amazement, instead of being cross, he stood transfixed, his eyes on my sinking heels and said “Oh, dearest Lucy, please don’t stop! Please carry on making the coffee just like that!”. Love, Lucy
JeffM Posted April 12, 2004 Posted April 12, 2004 Lucy's Story (41) Posted by Lucy on April 11, 2004, 16:16:13 Hi Everybody! I must acknowledge Laser, Paul, Stu and Raincat for their super responses to my Instalment No. 40. Whilst I still have some time at home during the remainder of my Easter 2004 break, let's get straight on with my Instalment No, 41: For the next few days I was unliveable with. Clarence had sailed for New York on his regular Atlantic crossing as a catering officer, and I wouldn’t see him for another two eternal weeks! Now that we had both admitted that we loved each other, I was beginning to wonder how on earth I was going to be able to endure these fortnightly absences of Clarence’s! Velma and Madeline had given up trying to buck me up, and were now avoiding me (“Thundercloud”). Then I tried to cheer myself up by wearing a different pair of all my highest heels to work each day. That certainly helped, and this exercise includes wearing my favourite Regent Shoes 5” black patent stiletto courts to business (similar to the yellow version recently discovered and posted by Fred, and usually kept for “best”). Also I wanted to get fully into practice with my highest pairs in readiness for the incredible “Betty Page” style shoes that Clarence had promised to bring back from the States for me. Whist at work that day I was a bit naughty, but it cheered me up enormously. Mr. Graham had asked me to visit one of our brand new estate agent branches in the Kingston area of South-West London. As I entered the front door of their showroom, the staff were all gazing at me from their desks, eager to see to the girl from central management. Just then my 5” stiletto heel sank into the bristles of the thick new doormat, throwing my ankle sideways and me off balance. Stanley, the new young manager froze completely and stood their transfixed, with his eyes staring downwards at my shining, teetering shoes. My skyscraper heels had got him all of a fluster and he could hardly blurt and stutter a greeting to me as he invited me into his side office. Ushering me in first, he walked behind me, so I mischievously treated him to my very best hugely exaggerated catwalk flipping at the end of each stride. We sat down either side of his desk, and already his face was blushing like an over-ripe tomato. We spent the next hour reviewing and analysing his branch’s first month in business, but the poor man kept struggling to bring his mind back on the job! After twenty minutes, Stanley went through the charade of letting an open box of paper clips fall off my side of the desk and scatter at my feet. I bent down, but he rushed round the desk, flung himself on his hands and knees and insisted on picking up the interminable number of paper clips one by one, strewn on all sides of my high heels! Now, at Business Academy, Miss Edwards has trained us girls strictly never to dangle or shoe-play during our business day, but this contrived situation was too good to miss and I’m afraid I weakened disgracefully! As Stanley groped to right and left for each paper clip, I was conscious that his face was only inches from my feet; his eyes riveted to my 5” Regent Shoes Specials. As he gazed at them, I eased my feet half-out of each shoe, crossed my legs and dangled the upper shoe on the very end of my big toe. “Are you sure I can’t help you” I asked innocently. “N-N-N-No, everything’s fine!” he stammered, trying to create the record for the longest time ever taken to pick up a handful of paper clips. Just then I let the shoe fall off and land right in the middle of the remaining paper clips. Stanley jumped out of his skin and I’ve never seen anyone look as flustered as he did at that moment! “Oh dear” I said “My shoe seems to have fallen off! As you are already down there, would you be so kind as to pick it up for me?” Stanley was lost for words, but he managed to reach out and grasp the shoe with hands shaking like a leaf, and nervously slid it back on my foot whilst holding one hand round my ankle and the other round the 5” heel as he did it. “I’d …… I’d ……. I’d ……..I’d ………better make us some coffee” he blurted and shot out of the office like a bullet. He was gone for simply ages. Eventually he returned with our coffees, but surprisingly looking just as red-faced and agitated as he had done when he had first left the office. In fact, he was positively dishevelled! I’ve never found it more difficult to keep a straight face. I sat and solemnly told him that despite the poorness of his branch’s first monthly figures, the first quarter was always the hardest, and I was confident that he would settle down and make a good manager. As I left, turned the corner and crossed the street to the bus stop, I glanced back and glimpsed his agitated face pressed against the window following every catwalk flip of my 5” heels. As I stood there waiting for the approaching bus, I gave him a final thorough side-to-side stationary wobble of both heels in true Jenny-like fashion for good measure. He was last seen mopping his brow with a big white handkerchief. “He’s sure got it bad” I smiled to myself as I re-lived the morning’s events in my mind as the bus sped me back to central office. Life was worth living again! Another thing cheered me up further the following day, on the way home from work. Just as my grey pair of Alps 4 ¾” stilettos had got me to the top of Pepys Road, I met Mrs. Parsons putting out her empty milk bottles. Mrs. Parsons was a slightly drab and weary-looking widow in her fifties and our neighbour who lived two doors down the hill from us. “Do you mind if I say something?” She said. “Ever since you moved in last year, I’ve admired you three girls. All three of you always look so smart, and happy and colourful. You all wear such lovely clothes, and in particular I always see each of you wearing those lovely modern high heels. It puts us older women like me to shame! Every time each of you goes by I always feel very envious and I’m so sad that life has passed me by.” “Oh, good gracious” I said, “I’d no idea that you felt like that, or that you’d even noticed what we were wearing”. She looked so moved and miserable that I thought she was going to cry. “Look, I’ll tell you what! Come up to our place and meet Velma and Madeline, and have a nice cup of tea and we’ll have a nice chat to you – a good old gossip - how’s that?”. “Oh that’s so kind – I get so lonely since my Arnold died” she said. Velma and Madeline beamed a welcome at Mrs. Parsons and sat her by our roaring coal fire with some hot tea in our one and only bone china cup and saucer. Soon she was elaborating on what she had already told me. “You see girls, in my day clothes weren’t nearly as nice or colourful as they are now. And when I was courting my Arnold, the shoes had low, thick heels. Since he died, the only things I’ve got to look at home are my drab clothes and row of ugly shoes. I’d give my right arm to be young again and to enjoy wearing the bright, cheery clothes and those lovely dainty feminine heels that you three wear all the time. But of course, it’s far too late for me at my age! “Nonsense” we all chorused, “It’s never too late”. Velma was wonderful with her. “Look” she said, “Whenever Lucy’s mother comes up from Surrey to visit her, she’s always in smart, modern clothes and lovely high stiletto heels, and she must be about the same age as you.” Madeline and I sat there and nodded vigorously. “And” continued Velma “Miss Sheridan, the principal of our business academy is also a similar age, and she suddenly started wearing stiletto heels when she saw us students wearing them to class. You are as old as you feel, and a modern outfit will make you feel so much more youthful!” “Do you really think so girls?” “Absolutely!” we chorused, “On Saturday, we’ll all take you up to Town for a nice lunch followed by shopping for nice clothes and OUR type of shoes! No arguments, no protests – that’s settled!” Love, Lucy
Lucy Posted April 17, 2004 Posted April 17, 2004 Hi all! Once more I’m overwhelmed by the response you my latest instalments! So many of you, and such kind messages! My warmest thanks to RPM, Carl J, Sinkem, Stu, Paul, Heelfan, Rob, Micael, Tom-NL and Laser. And my very special thanks to “Guest” and Jeff M for copying-across Instalments 39, 40 & 41 to MegaForum’s “Stories on a Heely Theme” where we now have my continuous Story from Instalment 1 to Instalment 41 (and growing!). Spikesfan has kindly done this copying-across in the past, but he seems to have disappeared just lately. Spikesfan, I hope you’re OK! Well, on with Chapter 42: The next morning, when I turned up for work, Ricky Everson said “Mr. Graham wants to see you in his office – something to do with your visit to Stanley at his Kingston Branch”. “Oh dear!”, I thought to myself as I knocked on the managing director’s door “I must be in real trouble. Stanley must be complaining about the inappropriateness of my ultra high heels and all that shoe-play….Oh cripes!”. “Come in Lucy!” beamed Mr. Graham “Well done in Kingston! Stanley has rung to say how much he appreciated your visit, and now asks if you could go down there again soon, in fact as soon as possible. He wants some advice regarding separating-out the freehold and leasehold transaction sides.” That was a relief, but how should I handle it? Was this an just an excuse of Stanley’s to gaze at my 5” Regent stilettos throughout another visit? Before I could think what to say or whether to wear frumpy flatties or something tantalisingly seductive, Mr Graham continued “But we don’t want to waste your valuable talents on such a routine matter, do we Lucy? Leave it to me. I’ll send young Snodgrass!” Snodgrass was in junior management, an earnest, insignificant little chap. I had to suppress a laugh at the thought of Stanley’s face when having looked forward to the lady in skyscraper heels, instead he would have to look at young Snodgrass! I resisted the temptation to tell Snodgrass to be sure not to teeter over there in anything less than 5” and to dangle like mad! When the weekend came, Velma, Madeline and I had promised Mrs. Parson that we take her up to central London for some nice modern clothes and high-heeled shoes. She try to look smart for the trip, but her best dress and coat were very plain in navy blue and her best shoes were stodgy tan brown lace-ups with thick 2 ½” heels. However, ever since our chat, she said she had been getting more and more enthusiastic about “Getting with it”. Madeline asked her “But didn’t your husband used to like you to get nice outfits and shoes for your nights out?”. “Not my Arnold” said Mrs. Parsons, “Mondays to Fridays he was working at the foundry, Saturdays he was out supporting Millwall (UK soccer football club) and Sundays was mowing the lawn and reading the paper. Now I’m single again I suppose I’d better start getting out in the evenings and making up for lost opportunities”. We took the tube train to Oxford Circus and whizzed Mrs. Parsons into some of our favourite clothes shops. With much encouragement, egging-on and gentle persuasion, within two or three hours we had achieved miracles. She emerged from the various changing rooms looking twenty years younger! Gone were her dowdy ‘World War II’ clothes and drab colours, and in front of us was a smart lady dressed in bright colours, much shorter more modern skirts, strikingly modern waist-belts and cheery neck-scarves etc. A whole new image now only spoiled by the hair and the ghastly “wren-officer’s” shoes. “Now it’s off to see Mick!” commanded Velma, and we trooped further down Oxford Street to the large shoe shop where Velma’s boyfriend worked. Mick, ever the expert shoe salesman, noted that here was a a lady wanting trendy shoes, but slightly plump and in her fifties. “The current fashion is towards these dinky little kitten heels madam – very Audrey Hepburn!”. “Oh no!” said Mrs. Parsons “I’ve completely missed out on the higher stiletto heels that have been around for the last few years and I’d now like some whilst I’ve still got the chance. I don’t think I could manage the stratospheric heights that these three splendid young ladies are wearing, but I’d like to attempt something as adventurous as I can cope with”. “Okee-Dokee” said Mick, and soon came back with a super range of stiletto courts in medium heights and various colours. Mrs. Parsons slipped her feet out of her lace-ups and into a pair of stiletto heels for the first time in her life. They were 3 ½” high. “Oh, they feel so lightweight after my shoes” she marvelled “But I’ve been worrying that the thin heels might twist my ankles. I have to walk very carefully in them, don’t I?”. We told her that she should get more and more used to them with practice. She said it felt most odd walking with her feet sloping-down so much and I feared that she was having second thoughts. But just then she caught sight of herself in the shop’s big full length mirror. She saw the effect of the bright, crisp clothes and the stiletto heels together. “Goodness gracious!” she said “Is that really me? – I’d never have believed it!”. She was right! – We were all witnessing a new person – a total transformation! She looked twenty years younger and infinitely more attractive. “Let’s try 4 inches as well, please!". Spurred on by this, Mrs. Parsons couldn’t stop and bought up half the shop! She ended up a big carrier-bag containing four pairs: a pair of 3” hour-glass stilettos (“For shopping in”), two pairs of 4” stilettos that her ankles could only just accommodate to, and the biggest surprise – as an afterthought she had fallen for the highest pair in the shop – a pair of 4 ½” slingbacks! “I’ll never be able to go far in these” she said, “but I suddenly realise all the lovely things I’ve been missing in life”. The story had a very happy ending. For the next few week we got more and more used to seeing the “new” Mrs. Parsons getting out and about in her trendy outfits and stiletto heels. She had dieted, lost weight a regain a very trim figure. Somehow it wasn’t just her appearance that brightened up, it was her entire personality. She went blonde and adopted a lovely hairstyle. She became imbued with a new confidence and a zest for life. With determination, she even managed to do better than we expected on her highest 4 ½” stilettos and went back on her own sometime later for a pair a black patent courts of the same height! Several times she popped in to thank the three of us, and shyly said that suddenly a number of the local gentlemen had started taking an interest in her! Then before long, low and behold, she introduced us to Ron, the local decorator and handyman. They had become engaged to be married! Ron said Mrs. Parsons “Looked a proper picture!”. Four months later they were married, and we enjoyed seeing Ron proudly taking his new wife out at least two or three nights a week. They had all the glow of young teenagers in love for the first time. And her shoe collection grew too! The neighbourhood was treated to a lovely, colourful and ever-changing collection of 4 ½” stiletto heels, no doubt funded by the adoring Ron! Love, Lucy Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
Lucy Posted April 22, 2004 Posted April 22, 2004 LUCY'S STORY - Chapter 43 Hi one and all! Thank you to Stu, RPM, Paul, Heelfan and Erica for your messages following my publishing Chapter 42. Here’s Chapter 43: The next few days seemed never-ending as I waited for the weekend and my darling Clarence to arrive back from his regular sailings to New York. At last the “Queen Elizabeth” docked in Southampton and Clarence telephoned me from the ship. At once I detected a note of disappointment in his voice “Lucy, I’m so sorry! When I promised to treat you to a pair of those stunning, ultra-high ‘Betty Page’ shoes, I naively thought I could just go into that same high heel specialist shop in New York and buy a pair.” But apparently nowadays they normally only make the modern thin stiletto heels, and apparently those Betty page photographs were taken before the mid-fifties in the days when somewhat thicker heels were still in fashion. They have had to send away specially for those heels, but the completed shoes should be ready for me to collect next time I’m in New York. I’m so sorry, I’ll have to keep you waiting for the shoes, but instead, can I treat you to Saturday luncheon at Maxines?” “Ooooh lovely – very romantic!” I said. Maxines De Champs Elysee was the London branch of the famous Maxines restaurant of Paris, in the Edgware Road within a few minutes walk of Clarence’s home, but sadly it was closed and demolished some years ago. That afternoon Madeline planned to get a replacement pair of 5 ½” courts from Regent Shoes. She had been wearing his first purple pair almost continuously for several months now, and they were barely holding out. She had asked whether I would like to go too, so I suggested that after our lunch, Clarence and I could walk along Oxford Street and Regent Street (looking at all the shoe displays as we passed) and meet Madeline in Regent Shoes. After Maxines most enjoyable French Cuisine, we walked past Marble Arch (with me again in my impossibly thin “Pin and Needle” heels) and at the first ladies’ shoe shop, Clarence began enthusing and pointing-out various high stiletto heeled shoes to me. I short-sightedly peered through half-closed eyes, but it was no good, I couldn’t really see the styles properly without putting on my glasses. Having done so, things were still somewhat fuzzy and I still couldn’t make out any of the price tickets! Although I hadn’t really been admitting to myself, my short-sightedness had been getting worse and my glasses weren’t really strong enough any more. Clarence pointed out that frequently I was using my knuckle to press the lenses closer to my eyes to improve the focus without really realising I was doing it, and was also still having to screw-up my eyes into a tight squint. “Oh, I’m so sorry” I blushed “I didn’t realise I was doing that nearly so much! Thank you so much for telling me! It must make me look awful! I promise I’ll get my eyes tested and get some new glasses as soon as I possibly can”. Incredibly, Clarence said “Oh no Lucy! Please don’t do that! You look so sexy when you are having to peer with difficulty at everything. Just looking at you standing there in the sunshine perched up and balancing on those wobbly “Pin and Needle” heels and having to squint through your lovely glasses to try and see the prices, you look so, so, so vulnerable and helpless and feminine and, and …………well, simply the most attractive vision I’ve ever seen in my entire life!”. Clarence was brimming with emotion and obviously absolutely besotted with me clicking along in my ultra-thin heels with my short steps trying to keep up with his long, manly strides, whilst also needing to peer at everything to see it! There and then he took me into his big, strong arms and gave me an almighty embrace and his handsome lips gave me a longer and more passionate kiss than I’d ever imagined possible! “Oh Lucy!” he said, “Every time we meet you don’t half get me going! The sexy way you use those stiletto heels and those sexy glasses. You’re one in a million-trillion! My mind was thrown into a turmoil! I was accustomed to my mega-heels turning the fellas on, and in the past one or two fellas had plucked up the courage to say that they thought my glasses were attractive, but to now also to actually hear that my having to screw my face up to peer at things was sexy came as a complete shock! Looking back, I now wonder that I wasn’t repelled by this, but instead at the time I was overwhelmed by Clarence being so handsome and kind and thoroughly appreciative of everything about me. I just melted into his arms and decided that although this new aspect was quite unexpected, and not a little kinky, it was also quite exciting because it brought out even more of Clarence’s attention and passion. I resolved to myself to sneak along and get some updated glasses in order to maintain my efficiency at business etc., but that whenever with Clarence I would stick to my existing inadequate ones as he had fervently requested! Thus we continued our stroll along Oxford Street, pausing whenever one or the other of us spotted some particularly nice high heels on display. At Mick’s shop, we popped our heads into the door and gave him a jolly wave, but he was very busy with their Saturday customers just grinned back at us over an armful of shoes, his eyes opening wide as he spotted my feet in the amazing “Pin and Needle”. As we turned right at Oxford Circus and wended our way hand-in-hand down Regent Street, Clarence whispered “Look at the lady walking ahead of us!”. She was wearing a pair of very high stiletto-heeled lime-green slingbacks. They appeared to be brand new. After every few paces, she repeatedly stopped and pulled-up one or both slingback straps. Then as she walked they immediately began slipping down again until only a few paces later they packed up completely and allowed her shoes to flip-flop like mules, particularly as the toe-straps were very low-set. The lady seemed to be getting very embarrassed and self-concious about this and was stopping with ever more frequency to pull up the straps. She did this countless times. Clarence and I were enjoying this hugely and were grinning away like schoolchildren. Eventually, as we approached Piccadilly Circus, the lady realised that she was fighting a losing battle and gave up completely on the straps, allowing the shoes to do their own thing and wildy flap on and off her feet. “Ah! At last she’s seen the light!” I beamed, and that sighting (plus my own “Pin and Needle” still slopping away merrily) set the seal on Clarence’s really good mood for the day. I had really been looking forward to introducing Clarence to the one and only Regent Shoes, and moments later we were duly turning the corner from Shaftsbury Avenue into Wardour Street. The shop was down on the right, and just as we reached it, Clarence suddenly spotted something and let out an involuntary gasp and said “Wow! Just look at that! Have you ever seen anything so amazing in your entire life?!!!!!!”. Love, Lucy Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
Lucy Posted April 25, 2004 Posted April 25, 2004 LUCY'S STORY (Chapter 44) Hi Everyone! It was lovely to have such a colossal set of responses to Chapter 43 from Mario, Erica, Stu, Sinkem, Paul, Heelfan, RPM, Erica, Allu, Mario and Dave. Thank you also for the messages on MegaForums from Smudgeur, “Guest”, JeffM, GirlWithBunions alias Shoelover 1982 alias TabascoTesa, and DawnHH, and for the kind PMs from Joe and Anita C. You’re all lovely people! On with Chapter 44: As we drew level with Regent Shoes’ shopfront , Clarence had said “Just look at THAT!". I immediately thought he had noticed their large placard in their left-hand window saying LONDON’S HIGHEST HEEL below a court shoe with a gimmicky heel which they had extended into being about three feet long. However, he hadn’t! He was ignoring the window and I found that he was gazing further down the pavement along which we had been walking. A girl in a short skirt and seamed stockings had just come out of the shoe-shop door and was teetering very gingerly away from us down towards Leicester Square. But the shoes! “Oh my God!” said Clarence, “I don’t believe it!”. I had never seen any girl attempting to wear heels as high as those on any public street. They were white and the heels must have been at least 6” high and the girl was utterly hopeless in them! Her knees were thrust right forward, her bottom was stuck out to the rear, her ankles and heels were wobbling horrendously this way and that, and she was obviously struggling to keep her overall balance too, using a hand to steady herself on some of the shopfronts as she passed! Clarence was transfixed! He gaped at the spectacle in wonderment. Hang on! It started dawning on me that there was something familiar about that retreating figure – the hair-style and the clothes. Just then, the girl abruptly turned around and started mincing and tottering back towards us and the shop. Of course!! It was Madeline! “Madeline!” I uttered, “What on earth are you doing out here in the street those impossible heels?”. “Ah, greetings both!” she exclaimed unabashed, with an enormous grin and flailing arms “Isn’t this fun!”. At this point she pirouetted round in a circle and rocked-and-rolled both heels to left and right and back “Whoops!” she laughed. “But, but ….don’t tell me you’ve gone and bought them, have you Madeline?” “Come on you two, let’s talk in the shop – it’s starting to rain out here” butted-in Clarence, ushering us inside. Turning to teeter in, Madeline promptly snagged one of the 6” heels on the doormat and almost shot in headlong. But chuckling away and still beaming from ear to ear she said “No! I haven’t bought anything yet, but I got here early, so I nosed through the curtain where the ‘special’ high heels are sold, and told the nice man in there that I’d always wondered what it would feel like to walk in 6” heels. He simply thrust this pair of used demonstration six-inchers at me and said ‘Please have a go, Madam!’, so here I am wearing them ….well, trying to wear them!’ and with that she unsteadily lowered herself down on to a chair and caressingly removed the astonishing shoes from her feet. “Wow!” she said, “That was an experience and a half!. Any further, and my leg muscles wouldn’t have lasted long enough to stop me pitching forwards on to the pavement! Look! – my calves are all of a tremble”. And sure enough, they were! Predictably, Clarence was beside himself! He croaked “I should have known! I can’t so much as spend a few minutes with any of you three girls without one or the other of you sending me berserk!”. “You’re not going to buy those outrageous shoes are you Madeline?” I asked. “No” she said, “I’m not quite that daft! But it was fun trying to stagger about in them whilst I was waiting for you and Clarence”. By this time, Clarence was re-composing himself sufficiently to start taking notice of the interior displays in Regent Shoes. “Woweee” he said “I didn’t think anywhere in the world would have this many fantastic high heels all in one room!”. He just didn’t know what to look at first! “What are you hoping to buy, Madeline?”. “Well, if I had the money, I’d buy every shoe in the shop” Madeline bubbled excitedly, “But …”. Just then she was distracted by what seemed like a whole army of ultra-glamorous ladies clattering into the shop in high heels. I think there were actually about eight of them all told, accompanied by a burly man in a suite smoking a big cigar. Ignoring the fact that we were in there first he barked at the shop manager “Kit ‘em out in the usual foot-gear. High as each one can manage. Sparkly gold-glitter this time!”. The three of us didn’t mind that they had all pushed in front of us, because it looked as if this was going to be interesting. The girls all sat in a line whilst the staff started bringing out gold-glitter court shoes in very high heel heights, with some a bit lower. Whilst waiting her turn, the girl sitting on the end nearest to us noticed our own high-heeled shoes and got chatting to us. She told us that they were the showgirls from the nearby Windmill Theatre. I had never been there, but I thought of it as London’s equivalent to the Moulin Rouge in Paris and its glamour girls. As a group with all their garish makeup, artificial eyelashes etc. they looked a bit hard and “Show-biz”. But this was deceiving, as the girl who spoke to us had a soft north-country accent and was very nice. She told us that whenever they changed shows, they discarded their last well-worn outfits for new, different ones, and usually made an appointment to come to Regent Shoes for new, glamorous sparkly 5” or 5 ½” high heels. “But can all of you manage to wear such high heels?” I asked out of sheer curiosity. “Well no” she said, “Ideally the guv’nor would like us all to wear skyscaper 5 ½” heels for the twice-nightly shows, but in fact me and one or two of the others can’t really manage in anything higher than about 4 ½”. Therefore he has conceded that each of us settles for the highest that we can actually cope with. That’s why some of the luckier girls are trying-on 5 ½” heels whilst two or three of us waiting here for somewhat lower ones. The trouble is, in the stage routines, the guv’nor always wants the most high-heeled girls in the limelight stage-front, and us lower-heels-girls are therefore stuck at the back!. It’s sensible though, because apparently before my time they put on one or two shows where every single girl instructed to wear 5 ½” heels, and within days half the girls were off sick with strained muscles, pulled tendons and a couple of sprained ankles. The only thing is, I just wish I were one of the lucky ones like some of them here who could dance and perform in the highest heights without those problems!” “So none of the girls go right up to 6” heels then?” asked Madeline. “No, not for the demanding dance and stage routines, I think that would be impossible for even the best of them” said our new friend “But look, Linda has just come in. She’s our singer, and she usually wears even higher heels than the dancers for her singing spots”. Surprisingly, Linda wasn’t dressed up to the nines like the others. Apparently she wasn’t involved in that day’s dress rehearsal, and she entered the shop in a nondescript trouser-suit, casual flat moccasins and wearing glasses in a similar style to mine! After the staff had fitted-out all of the showgirls in their glitzy gold sparklers, they turned their attention to Linda and brought out several pairs of high-heeled court shoes and some sling-backs. They all had 6” heels! Linda said “Hi” to the others, sat down and nonchalantly rolled-up her trouser bottoms up on to her calves, and started trying-on the row of six inch stunners. To Madeline’s eternal envy and frustration, Linda stood up in each pair and appeared to glide around the showroom looking just as smooth and relaxed as she had been in her flat mocassins! She chose a pair of fantastic bright red 6” stiletto courts, whereupon the “Guv’nor” paid for all the shoes with a huge wad of cash from his top pocket and they all trooped out with cheery waves and turned left back towards the Windmill. Clarence looked like the cat that swallowed the cream! “What a magnificent and interesting diversion!” he enthused, “And now back to your needs Madeline. Out of this Aladdin’s cave of a thousand high heels, What are you going to look at?”. Love, Lucy Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
Lucy Posted May 23, 2004 Posted May 23, 2004 Well Hi-There Everyone! I’m back and bug-free at last! My thank to everybody who wished me a speedy recovery from my chest infection – I wouldn’t want to go through that one again. A whole month! And a belated “Thank you” to all the members who gave lovely responses to my Chapter 44 – Stu, Sinkem, RPM, Paul, Mario and Erica. Also to those who did likewise on MegaForums when my Story was duplicated on “Stories” – Dawn, JeffM, TabascoTesa, Paul (North-East) and Jinxie Kat. Candice’s posting to say “Goodbye” to high heels due to foot problems was very sad, and I hope Mary’s support site to “Girls Stuck in High Heels” proves helpful – maybe the tendon-stretching exercises in my Instalments 23, 24 & 24a will help those “Permanent” girls. Finally I would like to give a huge welcome to the two new splendid contributors to this Girls in High Heels Forum of Jenny’s – Candice and Serenity. With their wonderful postings augmenting those of Erica, Anita, Stu, Paul, myself and others, I think this Forum is reaching it’s best-ever level. Here is my Chapter 45: Madeline’s usual mood of bubbling enthusiasm had temporarily evaporated. She wailed “How is it that my ankles and balance were all over the place when trying-on those 6” heels, and yet that dancer Linda comes swanning in and wears the shop’s 6” heels as smoothly and elegantly as if the were less than half the height? Hrrmmph! Even in these much-worn 5 ½” heels of mine, I’m not nearly as good as she was in all the six-inchers!”. Well, it was very difficult to think what to say to comfort her, because the sad fact is that some girls can wear high heels much more naturally and effortlessly than others. She seemed inconsolable. I don’t know if if was quite the right thing to say, but Clarence tried to cheer her up by answering “Well, I don’t know. I often think girls look more attractive and alluring if their heels are very high and very challenging to walk in, even to the point of being too high for them. You looked absolutely fantastic when Lucy and I saw you road-testing and teetering away in those white 6” stilettos out on the pavement! A wonderfully memorable moment! Such sights are bound to bring out the manly, protective instincts of us guys, aren’t they now?”. Madeline gave Clarence a peculiar look, as she wasn’t entirely sure whether his remark was a compliment or not, but after this she steadily brightened-up, and began looking at Regent Shoes’ amazing selection. It was certainly a wonderful assemblage of high heeled shoes – by far the best in London in those days. And being early Spring, it was seasonally a good time to visit because they were not only displaying all the winter styles – boots, court shoes etc.in black and dark colours, but the Spring and early Summer range had been added – high-heeled sandals and backless mules in light pastel colours and high wedge heels in similar colours and in cork. We were in heaven! As Clarence and I sat there, Madeline began trying on this and that pair, tentatively at first, and then with increasing vigour as her usual cheery enthusiasm began re-asserting itself. Clarence’s eyes were following every move of Madeline’s feet as they slipped in and out of countless pairs of high heels and pottered and tottered up and down the showroom. She seemed to be drawn repeatedly to various versions of the good old 4 ¾” stiletto-heeled “Alps” that already featured heavily of my shoe collection with Velma by now owning three pairs as well. Clarence murmered “Why am I noticing that those seems to be the highest heels on display? Aren’t Regent Shoes supposed to be famous for ultra-high heels like the ones that Madeline and Linda were trying earlier on?”. I explained to him that the main shop area was laid out for ‘ordinary’ ladies that came in looking for the higher end of the ‘normal’ high heel range up to 4 ¾”, whereas their specialist range of skyscraper heels for specialist connoisseurs (including men!) was kept through the curtain in the inner private-appointment showroom. Clarence was spellbound at my mention of the ‘Inner Sanctum’, and I sensed a second surge of excitement ripple through him as I mentioned the male high-heel customers. He breathed into my ear “You mean men actually come here to buy shoes for themselves? High heels in men’s sizes?”. “Well yes”, I whispered, “More than once Velma and I have seen men collecting their high heels from here, and one actually wore them out of the shop”. “Goodness Gracious!” Clarence softly exclaimed, and went very quiet. Meanwhile, Madeline was having a whale of a time. By now practically every stiletto-heeled shoe of over 4” was off the display stands and littering the carpet. The poor assistant couldn’t keep up with her dives and lunges towards every style in sight, but Madeline finally settled for the slingback version of “Alps” in a summery lemon-yellow colour. I blurted out “But Madeline, I thought your reason for coming here was to replace your beloved purple 5 ½” courts with an identical style?”. “Ah! We’re just coming to that” grinned Madeline, “I’m about to look at their ‘Special’ shoes”, but for everyday wear, I’ve been admiring Velma’s and your pairs of 4 ¾” ‘Alps’ so I’m getting both heel-heights today.”. At last Madeline was seeing sense. A few months ago she’d escaped from a repressive mother and ‘sensible’ shoes and gone on the rebound straight into outrageous 5 ½” stilettos from which she had become inseparable until now when they were virtually worn out. But she had started suffering from tendon-shortening problems despite the stretching exercises that I had shown her (see my Chapters 23 – 24a), plus growing aching of the lower back. Daily 5 ½” wearing was taking it’s toll and she was seeing sense! For the ultra-high heeled shoes, the special salesman emerged from the curtain and duly beckoned Madeline through. “Can my friends come too?” asked Madeline. “Well” pondered the specialist. “Normally we are only used to discreetly seeing one client at a time, so there is very little room in there. But if your two friends can squeeze in, I suppose it will be alright”. Clarence seemed hugely grateful and excited, so hand-in-hand, we followed the salesman and Velma into the little room. It certainly was minute, so Clarence and I pressed and squashed ourselves into the corner with a few giggles, giving Madeline just enough room to try on the wonderful array of shoes. Do you know, for a long time afterwards, both Clarence and I mutually remembered that as one of the sexiest moments of our lives. We were totally surrounded by the most fantastic ultra high-heeled shoes in the universe, all looking so, so, so hypnotically erotic! And I felt Clarence’s tall, muscular body pressed so tightly against mine. As we watched Madeline’s feet insert themselves into the first of many pairs of towering 5 ½” heels, the whole scenario sent an electric shock of excitement rippling through Clarence’s body and mine. Clarence’s arms were around me, his large sensitive hands running up and down my body, our eyes never leaving Madeline’s feet. Luckily the saleman and Madeline were too engrossed in the shoes to notice what was happening behind them, but my antics were becoming as wildly passionate as Clarence’s. The climax came when the assistant produced a pair of high-heeled courts to kill for! The were in sky-blue patent leather, with the most incredible low-cut uppers and toes we’d ever seen, and a tiny little dinky bows on the toes, and wonderfully thin (about ¼”)high, high stiletto heels. As Madeline tenderly inserted one foot into them and then the other, she was re-invented! Clarence breathed “Just look at that toe cleavage!”, Madeline was moved into utter speechlessness, and even the salesman of long experience looked mightily impressed. The insteps of Madeline’s size 5 (UK) feet were forced up into the vertical, and as she rocked the precarious heels 5 ½” heels to left and right to get the measure of them, I felt Clarence stiffen and simultaneously I experienced a special and unforgettable moment of my own. Fortunately, a highly delighted and excited Madeline and the saleman went back through the curtain to the shop till to conclude the purchases, thereby avoiding noticing the disgracefully flushed and unkempt state of Clarence and myself! I looked sheepishly over at Madeline, but through my daze of still being intoxicated by gorgeous Clarence and all those high heels, all I heard her say was “Can I please wear them out of the shop?”. More soon! Love, Lucy Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
Lucy Posted May 27, 2004 Posted May 27, 2004 Hi All! Lovely to receive responses top my Chapter 45 from Sinkem, Carl J, Stu, Jim, Mario, RPM, Paul and Mr. Spike, plus nice, friendly words from Erica and Candice, and replies on here from Dawn and JeffM. Chapter 46: As Madeline proudly tottered out of Regent Shoes in her stunning new sky-blue 5 ½” stiletto-heeled courts, Clarence and I followed her into the street, smiling at her enthusiasm, and being infected by it. Although Madeline always walked in a somewhat hampered way in mega-heels, these new ones made her look fantastic, despite her odd wobble and “Whoops!”. The three of us caught the train to New Cross, because Velma had spent all day preparing and cooking a meal for six which was to include Velma, Me and Madeline and our three boyfriends Mick (the Oxford St. shoe salesman), Clarence and Cedric. Cedric worked as an accounts clerk at the same firm as Madeline, and she’d asked him along to the six-some as their very first date! Madeline changed-down into her new 4 ¾” Alps for our walk up Pepy’s Road to the top of Telegraph Hill. Needless to say, both slingbacks had slipped down before we entered our three-girl pad and were greeted by a wonderful candle-lit spread laid out by Velma. Mick had already turned up with multitudinous bottles of wine, winked at us all, and we awaited the arrival of Cedric with great curiosity. Any friend of Madeline’s was bound to be very nice. But he wasn’t! We opened the front door to a very prim and proper young man with a very prim and proper moustache and central hair parting who was already looking most disapprovingly at the weeds growing out of our window boxes. He introduced himself very formally, and stiffly shook hands with us all, including Madeline. Undaunted, Velma sat us all down around the table, poured us a generous drink of sherry (which Cedric prudishly pushed away, asking instead for tap water) and bore in the prawn cocktail starters which in those days were a great novelty. Of course, Mick and Clarence got on like a house on fire. The both had a great sense of fun, and like us three girls, they were both high heel enthusiasts! Mick and Velma were fascinated when we told them all about the Windmill Theatre showgirls getting kitted-out in glitzy high heels. Mick had always had a fascination for such groups of ladies shopping for identical heels, and immediately began regaling us with one similar such situation is his shoe shop. Three ravishing beauties had entered and asked Mick “We’re a singing sisters threesome, and have you got three pairs of identical stiletto-heeled shoes in orange to match our new stage dresses?” “But not more than 3” high” added one of them “Because I can’t manage in higher heels like my two sisters can”. Mick noticed that even wearing kitten heels she was looking very awkward in them. After disappearing for several minutes, Mick re-emerged and said “I’m afraid orange is a scarce colour, especially as it’s still late winter. However, I do have this one model in orange, but the heels are much higher than 3”, I’m afraid”. “Oh, they’re the ideal colour and simply glorious!” enthused the other two singers, over-ruling the first sister and ignoring her horrified looks. Before Mick could blink, they had bought all three pairs and rushed out. Mick said he often wondered how the non-heel-managing girl got on wearing 4 1/2” stilettos for the first time in front of an entire concert audience! Just then Velma brought in the main course of delicious traditional roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes, and dispensed an appropriate French red wine. I answered Mick by mentioning that I had also found myself going out in 5 ½” heels that were my highest ever when Mummy had enthused about a green leather coat matching my green leather boots and being great as a street outfit. Mick nodded enthusiastically and told us that many, many times individual ladies had come into his shoe shop purely to find shoes in a colour that matched their particular coat, skirt or dress, only afterwards realising that the heels were really too high for them. “That’s right” I chipped in, “I’ve noticed this on several occasions in the street. Some ladies look very nice in their matching ensembles, but I remember one lady in Bond Street wearing a turquoise coloured coat and she had obviously bought her very high-heeled turquoise shoes to match the coat. The coat looked wonderful on her, but as for coping in the high stiletto heels, she was walking along the pavement like a trussed chicken!”. Cedric sipped unenthusiastically at his glass of wine, stayed disdainfully silent throughout our high-heel chattermongering, and eventually cleared his throat asked the room in general what we thought about the political situation in Cyprus. That killed the convivial mood of the dinner more effectively than an atom bomb! Even during our dessert of peaches and ice cream, the mood was positively sombre with Cedric’s dissaproving presence casting a gloomy shadow over us all. Anyway, not to be discouraged, Velma cleared the remains of the meal away into the kitchen and gaily announced to the three fellas that we three girls had a treat in store for them – a little fashion show of our best high heels. We remembered how much Clarence had enjoyed our impromptu heel-parade in his mews cottage, so we were sure that the fellas would be doubly appreciative of a better prepared parade at home where we could feature all of our most spectacular pairs of high heels. Velma asked Clarence, Mick and Cedric to sit on our long settee, thrust a hot coffee and after-dinner mints at each of them, and we retired to don the first three pairs of our “stunners”. Well all had pretty short skirts on, and I put on my 5” white stiletto courts that had featured in the Isle of Wight beauty contest, Velma slipped into her high Italian slingbacks, and Madeline again put on her brand new sky blue Regent Shoes 5 ½” stiletto courts. We all swept into the sitting room trying to do our best “Pretty bimbos teetering in high heeled shoes” act, parading around the room in front of the fellas, with a few catwalk-like turns and twizzles, showing off our stiletto heels to best effect. Immediately, Clarence and Mick were totally captivated, watching our every move in rapt attention and hugely enjoying every little move of ours and saucy flip of our heels. They were lapping it up! Absolutely loving it! But suddenly we all became aware of Cedric’s presence. To the dismay of everyone else, he was looking more and more scornful and irritated. “I can’t see why your shoes are getting all this attention” he snivelled, “they look thoroughly tasteless and silly to me, and anything to do with shoes is so boring to anyone with a fine mind!”. Madeline, feeling responsible for having invited Cedric, looked utterly embarrassed and devastated. I thought she was going to cry out of sheer humiliation! Velma could see that the atmosphere was irretrievably ruined for the night, so as soon as she decently could, she tactfully suggested that it was time for a hot “nightcap” drink to fortify the fellas for their journeys home. Before Clarence left, he and I did the washing-up together and had a quick kiss and cuddle in the kitchen. “I am so sorry Clarence” I said, “I had no idea that it was possible for one killjoy to ruin an evening so thoroughly”. “Don’t worry on my account” said Clarence, “It was a super day walking along Oxford Street with you, and then experience those magic moments in Regent Shoes, and then enjoying Velma’s marvellous meal and seeing you three in top high-heeling form! And now Lucy, just to cheer you up, I’ve got a surprise plan for you: When the Lizzie (as Clarence called the “Queen Elizabeth”) next gets back to England in a fortnight’s time, as one of the caterering officers, it’s my turn to stay on board to oversee the stock-and-stow of all the provisions for the next crossing. So instead of me coming up to London, I’m inviting you down to Southampton to visit me on the ship! And, don’t forget, they’ve promised that I'll have those specially-made American skyscraper 6 inch ‘Betty Page’ heels to give you when we meet!”. Outwardly I sparkled in glee and anticipation, but inwardly I was saying to myself "How on earth will I be able to manage 6" heels???". Love, Lucy Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
Lucy Posted May 30, 2004 Posted May 30, 2004 Hi to all you high-heel enthusiasts! Chapter 46 sparked off lovely replies from Sinkem, Paul. Erica, Stu, Mario and RPM, and on MegaForums I received very nice messages from JeffM and Dawn HH – you all very kind to this London lass! And now to one of the most memorable milestones in my life – my first 6” heels. In the event, the occasion proved to be much more momentous than I had bargained for. Honestly forum members, I can’t believe that it has taken me 47 chapters to get to this point!: For an interminable fortnight I had been counting-off the days, hours and minutes before I could be with my beloved Clarence again, and could be shown around the World’s largest ocean liner, and could be given my first ever 6” heels!. It was all so exciting! But now at last on this sunny spring morning in 1964 I was speeding from London to Southampton on the train. Clarence was looking forward to introducing me to his fellow officers on the “Queen Elizabeth”, so I felt it befitting to wear my smartest and most attractive formal navy blue skirt-suit over a light blue blouse, a matching navy blue patent leather handbag, and in honour of Clarence, on my feet I wore his gift to me of “Pin and Needle”, those wonderful rapier-thin(3mm) titanium heels with the light translucent blue uppers in such a low-cut court shoe style. As they had been too big for me from the start, and the thin leather had stretched even larger,They had been slopping on and off my feet like mad. I actually liked that ‘pseudo mule’ slapping sensation, but it had already detracted from my decorum at Claridge’s and I didn’t want let Clarence down in the dignity of the “Queen Elizabeth”. Therefore I had put insoles and heel-grips into “Pin and Needle”, and that just about prevented them from slopping. With the light and dark blue outfit, I hoped I looked ultra-smart and a bit nautical for Clarence. As I walked through Southampton Dock’s gates, clutching the Visitors’ Boarding Pass that Clarence had sent to me, the enormous ship lay berthed in the distance. It was quite a walk to through the docks to the Cunard Terminal where the “Queen Elizabeth and the “Queen Mary” tied-up on alternate weekends, having usually crossed within sight of each other in mid-Atlantic. Poor old “Pin and Needle” had to negotiate stretches of uneven concrete here and tarmac there, interlaced with hazardous inset railway lines and odd coils of rope and lengths of rusty chain. However, despite my somewhat heel-wobbly progress, I made it unscathed to the ship, having approach along the quayside. I gasped in disbelief upon gazing up at the riveted steel hull of the ship, rearing above me like a huge black endless cliff. The two “Queens” were the only ships to have exceeded 1,000 feet in length, the “Elizabeth” having been slightly the longer at 1,031 feet. Up-ended it would have been over five-and-a-half times as high as Nelson’s Column! Even without being up-ended it was still astoundingly lofty, having 13 decks (the height of a 13-storey building!) plus the biggest funnels in the world, and being 234 feet tall from the keel to the masthead. A Cunard official inspected my pass and directed me up the crew gangway. The passenger gangway was a posh covered-over hydraulic affair like boarding a large aircraft, but the crew had to use a long primitive swaying wooden gangplank with handrails. Immediately, both “Pin and Needle” sank down into gangplank and became stuck! Behind me, a laundryman put down his enormous basket and kindly pulled the heels out of the wood for me. I put them back on, but this time tippy-toeing the rest of the way into the ship, avoiding putting any weight on my heels. Checking upon each person embarking from the gangway was the ship’s Master-at-Arms. He said “Ah yes, welcome aboard Ma’am. I’ll telephone the catering officers’ quarters and inform them of your arrival”. Moments later, a beaming Clarence appeared looking breathtakingly handsome in his Cunard Line officer’s uniform. He held out both arms towards me and I shot straight into them. I don’t know which of us was the more delighted to see the other. “Oh Clarence” I breathed into his neck, “This is fantastic!”. “My Darling Lucy!” said Clarence, “We can have five precious hours together on board. Yesterday afternoon and this morning I’ve managed to complete all my Stock-and-Stow duties, so there’s now enough new food and provisions on board to feed over 3,360 passengers and crew for a week.” “My goodness” I though to myself “a whole floating city!”. Clarence continued “You are just in time to be my guest for lunch. After that, I do hope I can show you everything before our special Betty Page Shoes moment”. Clarence lead me through into what he called the “Working Alleyway” which the passengers never saw. It was a fascinating steel-walled central corridor running the full length of the bowels of the ship, lined by dozens of service areas and departments – laundry, fire station, Printing press, carpenters’ workshop etc. and the alleyway was teeming with seamen, kitchen staff, painters, greasers and all manner of ship’s company members. My heels had been clang-clang-clanging along the red-painted steel deck and I felt the curious eyes of a hundred of the crew upon my shoes. Clarence opened a curved metal hatch to a circular steel compartment and said “go in there and look up”. “Wow!” I said, looking up a what seem to be a never-ending vertical round shaft with a metal climbing rungs running right up it. “What on earth is that?” Clarence told me I was looking up the hollow steel foremast, at the top of which was a glazed crow’s-nest compartment for the lookout who was connected to the bridge by telephone. After that, Clarence took me up a flight of stairs to “R Deck” and the completely different world of the first class passengers. We were now walking along sumptuous corridor panelled from end to end in highly figured “fiddle-back” maple. Clarence astounded me by saying that there were so many corridors, passageways and decks on the “Queen Elizabeth” that it was possible to walk for 22 miles without retracing one’s steps at all! With a chivalrous bow, he gestured me into the First Class Restaurant. It was vast – the full 118’ width of the ship and longer again. Only a proportion of the passengers had arrived on board, so the restaurant was less than half full, but the surroundings were so grand! Wood panelling and carved wood sculptures and tapestries and metal sculptures adorned that walls, and smart waiters in short white jackets hovered to give us silver service with a choice of countless dishes and courses. I was so excited that afterwards I couldn’t remember what I’d eaten! Clarence introduced me to a number of his fellow officers, all looking absolutely magnificent, and even to the Commodore of the fleet! Apparently, the other Cunard ships each had a captain with four gold rings on their sleeves, but being the biggest and best, the “Queen Elizabeth" was under the command of the Commodore himself with five gold rings! Clarence said that many celebrities travelled on the New York run and pointed out that the young actress Hayley Mills was just entering the restaurant. Minutes later violinist Yehudi Menuhin and conductor Leopold Stokowski came in together and sat near us. I felt just like a film star myself, and was so pleased that I had stopped “Pin and Needle” from slopping and looking slovenly. After the lunch, Clarence continued taking me on a whirlwind tour of the ship. Even visiting only a fraction of the thirty-seven public rooms, only two of the swimming pools and only one of the gymnasiums and one of the cinemas, my feet felt as if “Pin and Needle” had covered the full 22 miles of Clarence’s corridors, and we still hadn’t been “Topsides”! We ascended to the vast navigation bridge and it’s controls. The view over the foredeck and bows was quite stunning. Clarence tried to take me out on to the starboard wing of the bridge which overhangs the side of the ship but the huge 90’ sheer drop below made me too giddy to stay there! He pointed to the spare propeller lashed down on the foredeck – a colossal piece of brass 18 feet in diameter and weighing 32 tons. Then he pointed at the two enormous funnels aft of the bridge, each rearing 56’ above the top deck and the forward funnel bearing the pair of famous whistles which weighed over a ton apiece and could be heard 10 miles away. It was all absolutely incredible! Too much to take in! Lastly, Clarence suggested a romantic walk right around the promenade deck. Luckily the teak deck was too hard for “Pin and Needle” to sink into as they had done on the gangplank, so hand in hand we set out, but “OOPS” – whenever either heel stepped on the pitch caulking between the planks, I immediately kept sinking in and getting stuck. I tried hard to tread only on the teak planks, but every now and then SQUITCH and one or the other heel was stuck again. This kept yanking the shoes off my feet and destroyed the new heel-grips. Before long “Pin and Needle” were slip-slopping off my feet again and slap-slap-slapping way merrily. “Oh well” I shrugged. Clarence just grinned hugely. “And now Lucy” he said, “Before all visitors have to go ashore, we’ve just got nice time to visit my cabin together to see if we can find a certain pair of very, very, very special shoes for you!”. Love, Lucy Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
Lucy Posted June 2, 2004 Posted June 2, 2004 Hi Everone! A humungous "Thankyou" for the lovely replies to my Chapter 47 on Jenny's Forum from Patience, Mike, Mario, Paul and Sinkem and for the very nice reply on this forum from Dawn HH. Here's Chapter 48: As Clarence lead me down the “Queen Elizabeth’s” companionways three decks from Promenade Deck to B Deck, I was bursting with excitement (and some apprehension) to be given the much-awaited “Bettie Page” shoes that he had ordered to be especially made for me in New York. Clarence had shown me various editions of the American “High Heels” magazine that he had been buying on news-stands on Broadway, so I had seen Bettie Page in the incredible 6” heeled shoes that she was famous for wearing. I will try to include such typical Bettie Page photos for you in my duplicate story on MegaForums story page: On B Deck, Clarence took me forward to his cabin, an outer one with a port-hole situated two decks below the foredeck, just forward of the bridge structure. Clarence said “When you go ashore, look on the starboard bow for the name QUEEN ELIZABETH (which is 84 feet long by the way – one foot for every thousand tons of the ship!). Find the row of port-holes below the name, count seven port-holes going aft from the letter “Q”, and that’s me! Clarence’s cabin was small but very neat and ship-shape. He said “The senior stewards share two-to-a-cabin and the waiters and commis waiters share four to a cabin, but fortunately we catering officers each have a cabin of our own”. On the wall by his bunk and the ceiling overhead were tell-tale traces of sellotape. “Aye, aye” I challenged, “Has a certain catering officer been peeking at pin-up photos?”. Clarence went all red. I was enjoying this! “Well, come on, I persisted, where are they then? Show them to Lucy!” I was trying to look very stern, but it was almost impossible for me not to burst out laughing. A very, very sheepish Clarence mumbled “Oh well, if I’m rumbled, I suppose I can’t avoid showing them to you, but try not to be to angry with me!” He opened his wardrobe, reached up to the top shelf and handed me a sheaf of pictures, obviously all extracted from magazines. Spreading them along his bunk, I found that none of the lovelies were nude or pornographic. They were either fully-clothed or sporting bikinis or lingerie, but all were balanced on incredibly high, precarious heels, including three of four of Bettie Page herself! But to my even greater fascination, there was a large batch of enlarged glossy black-&-white photographs of what were obviously of the ship’s passengers. In every picture of a lady or couple photographed, the lady was wearing elegant clothing, the utmost in finery, and on her feet was the most superb pair of high stiletto-heeled shoes!”. “How on earth did you get these” I gasped. “Easy” muttered an ashamed-looking Clarence, nervously ruffling his sensitive fingers through his dark brown hair “On every crossing, they hold three Commodore’s Cocktail Parties, one each for First Class, Cabin Class and Tourist Class. The First Class passengers are served with the oodles of the best in champagne and caviar, and at the other extreme the Tourist Class passengers get a small cheap sherry and a biscuit!. The First Class passengers include the finest people in society and many celebrities, and this is their big moment to shine! The gentlemen all wear black evening dress and bow ties, and the ladies – Well! …….. all those fantastic shoes!” Clarence was starting to lapse into one of his ‘high heel comas’ that I was learning to recognise, but pulling himself together he continued “Anyway, the two ship’s photographers circulate and photograph everyone. They have their own darkroom and enlarger on board, so before the end of each crossing, all of the photographs are numbered and enlargements printed with “RMS Queen Elizabeth” across the bottom, and they are displayed in the ship’s foyer for anyone to order and purchase. In fact, I’ve become Bob and Dave’s best customer! Nowadays, I don’t even need to place orders. Whenever a particularly stunning pair of high heels appears in any shot, they automatically print-off an extra copy, knowing that I’ll buy it, and I now get a great bulk-discount! And here they all are!”. I had become so engrossed in all those wonderful evening dresses, hairstyles, shawls, jewellery and most of all, the superb high heels, that I was ignoring the fact that Clarence was now slumped in his chair looking very guilty and utterly miserable. “Now that you have discovered what I look at on my voyages, are you going to leave me?” he whispered. “Good gracious no! Don’t be such a fathead!” I chuckled “I realise you can’t have me on the trips, so anyone that’s more than half man and has any spirit needs something to enjoy! Look, I’ll let you stick them all back up in your cabin on one condition”. “What’s that?” croaked Clarence “That you add one or two of me in amongst them, and I don’t mind if I’m shown in my highest heels!”. Clarence’s face burst into a delighted wreath of smiles and he swept me off my feet and bodily on to his bunk for an unforgettably passionate outburst of kisses and cuddles. Suddenly our embrace was shattered by the most deafening and prolonged clap of thunder that I’d ever heard. “Oh my goodness” said Clarence, shutting the porthole, “That’s the 15-minutes-to-sailing warning from the ship’s whistle! And talking of your highest heels, I haven’t even given you the “Extra Specials” yet! He opened the bottom drawer of his chest, and lovingly handed me a shoe box identical to the one that had held ‘Pin and Needle’ with a silk ribbon bow on top. “Quick, with all my love” he said. The big moment! I feverishly undid the box and gazed transfixed at the contents. They were black calfskin courts and the 6” heels looked impossibly high! Clarence explained that most of the famous Bettie pages were taken from about 1952 onwards and mostly just before true pencil-thin stilettos came along. Therefore the heels of most of Betties shoes were about ¾” to 1” wide at the bottom. “To train you in your first 6” heels, I explained to the shoe-maker that you had found even your green 5 ½” stiletto boots to be a little too high and thin and wobby, so I asked him to make these ¾” wide to give you a little more stability and also to look like authentic Bettie Page’s!”. "Oh Wow!” I gasped “Thank you so much Clarence, but I’ll never be able to wear these! – Look at the heel-height in the flesh! I’d no idea that they would be this incredibly high!”. “Well, try them and see” enthused Clarence “If Bettie can do it, then so can you!”. I didn’t read until years later that although Bettie modelled for all those countless amazing pictures in 6” heels, she had a larger foot than mine, and even then apparently she was never much good at walking in them! Clarence placed them on the floor at my feet, but they promptly keeled over sideways, so he held each one steady whilst I gingerly inserted my feet into them. “Oh golly!” I exclaimed. I felt my insteps being forced upwards and forwards into a seemingly impossible angle, with my insteps way, way forward of the vertical for the first time, the push of the heels was thrusting my ankles, shins and knees forwards. The toes of the shoes were almost hidden from me, tucked under my legs and insteps! I tried standing unaided, and promptly had to steady myself against the wall. The amazing heels were doing their best to pitch me forwards, flat on my face. It took the utmost effort of every muscle in my body to combat this forward-pitching and to stand erect. “Try walking across the cabin” said Clarence. Although deliberately short, my first pace was still too long, so I couldn’t put the toe-part of the shoe to the floor. I found that only by adopting the most minute steps a few inches long could I totter forwards in them at all. “Wonderful!” exclaimed a delighted Clarence, “Terrific! But quickly now, put “Pin and Needle” back on because we’ve only just got seconds to go for me to see you safely ashore down the crew gangway”. I only had a moment to give Clarence the briefest “Thankyou” kiss before we scuttled down to the crew exit. With Clarence carrying my incredible “Betties” for me and descending close behind me, I boarded the wooden gangplank, trying to again keep on tiptoe to avoid Pin or Needle becoming impaled. But this was impossible! The gangplank was now sloping much more steeply due to the rising tide, and I was now trying to walk down instead of up. “Pin” (my left shoe) immediately sank into the wood again and I walked out of it, and simultaneously Clarence’s descending foot inadvertently kicked “Pin” free. We watched helplessly as it rolled and skittered ahead of us diagonally down the sloping gangway, biddely, biddely, biddely-bump, and over the side, and down, down, down, gloop! into the horrible oily bit of sea between the ship and the shore. We were both dumbstruck with horror, but Clarence had the presence of mind to scoop me up in his arms and carry me semi-barefooted the rest of the way to the quayside and safety, to the ribald cheers, jeers, catcalls and wolf-whistles of countless deck hands and crew looking down from the ship’s rails. As the ship’s whistle thundered the final call for sailing and withdrawal of gangways, I wailed “Oh thank you so much for everything Clarence, have a super trip! Miss you! But we’ve lost one half of lovely “Pin and Needle” that you bought me! It’s so terrible! And what am I going to wear on my feet right now to get myself all the way back home to London?” Love, Lucy Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
Lucy Posted June 6, 2004 Posted June 6, 2004 Hi Everyone! A million thanks to all those who replied to my Chapters 47 & 48: RPM, Stu, Paul, Sinkem, Candice, Mario, Mike (welcome!) and Patience (welcome back!), and also to those who replied to my MegaForums edition: Jeff M, Dawn HH, Smudgeur and Paul NW. We now come to one of the most memorable milestones in my life in high heels – my impromtu and unforseen journey in impossibly high 6” heels! Wait for it! Here we go – Chapter 49: With the “Queen Elizabeth” about to sail at any second, Clarence was still ashore at the wrong end of the gangway! In a trice, he carried me over to a big iron bollard, sat me down on it, groped inside the shoebox for my new 6” Bettie Page shoes and feverishly put them on my dangling feet. “There” he panted, “They’re the only shoes we’ve got to get you back to London, but please go very, very carefully in them my darling Lucy! Love you! Bye!” and with that, and still brandishing my surviving “Needle” in one hand, he literally threw himself up the crew gangway which they had already begun withdrawing. So there I was! Suddenly abandoned and left to my own devices on the quayside, finding myself wearing outrageous 6” high heels that were so extreme that I could hardly stand up in them, let alone walk in them! At most, I had anticipated that I would only ever to a little gentle teetering and tottering in them in the privacy of Clarence’s mews cottage, and yet here I was in public, having to try and get back to my London home! I could never in my life remember being in such an impossible situation. “Oh cripes Lucy, get out of this one!” I muttered frantically to myself. Tentatively I slid forwards off the bollard, lowering my feet to the ground, and immediately feeling the height of those huge heels thrusting my arches and posture forward. Despite my Business Acadamy training in standing erect, I found that the the heel-height was pushing my knees well forwards, my pelvis upwards and my bottom backwards. I had been so immersed in the challenge of starting-off in the 6” heels that only now did I become aware of renewed cheering from the crew members. Now that sailing time had arrived, hundreds of them were now lining the rails towards to ship’s fore-deck, directly above me. Who or what were they cheering at? ….. It was me! Or more precisely it was the “Bettie Page Show” that I was giving them! Oh goodness – it was so embarrassing! Although restricted to the most tiny of steps, my intention was to try and retrace my route past the bows, along the quayside and escape across to the dock gates. However, the moment I took my first few tiny teetering steps, the crew’s cheers turned to a solid ROAR of approval, with scores of piercing wolf-whistles mixed in. So hampered was I by the ridiculous heels, that mincing every ten feet further forward seemed like an eternity. However, at last I left the prow of the ship behind me together with the embarrassment of all those seamen and stewards also behind me (or so I thought). But it was not to be - what had been an open quayside and my route to and from the ship was now sealed-off with steel crowd-barriers. I hadn’t been wearing my glasses because I had wanted to look as beautiful as possible for Clarence and his fellow officers. I now peered and peered shortsightedly through half-closed eyes, desperately trying and spot an opening through which to escape, but it was all too much of a blur. Just as I finished rummaging in my handbag for my glasses and was putting them on, a uniformed Cunard official stepped forward and said “Excuse me madam, the ends of the quay are always cordoned-off for an hour either side of sailing. I must ask you to retrace your steps and exit through the entrance to the terminal building which is opposite the mid-point of the ship. Oh, and if you’ll pardon me for mentioning it madam – very nice shoes indeed madam, if I might make so bold!” I stammered a blushing “Thank you” at the kind man. “Oh no!” I groaned to myself, realising that I would have to totter and teeter back past all of those some crewmen for a second time! Already the sheer strain of coping with 6” heels for the very first time was indescribable. Every muscle and sinew in my feet, ankles, legs and entire body was strained as tight as a violin string as I strove to stay erect and to keep tottering forwards without falling off the fetishy heels. I was sorely tempted to do that return stretch in my nylon stockinged feet, but one look at the quayside littered with rusty old screws, nails, stones and patches of black oil immediately put me off that idea. In any case, something inside me told me that I would be letting-down Clarence and that fanatically enthusiastic crew. If it had been humiliating trying to walk past them in heels that were blatantly far too high for me, then it would be even more humiliating to chicken out of wearing them for the return trip! So, on they stayed. Predictably, as the crew suddenly realised to their delight that I and my high heels were coming back past them again, their cheers began once more and began swelling in volume. But all of a sudden I became aware of something else as well. As I teetered so precariously along the quay, not only did I have the ship’s audience on my right, but there was also an even larger audience on my left too! A balcony ran along the upper floor of the terminal building, and the rail was now thronged with hundreds more onlookers! These were obviously the friends and relatives of the passengers who were travelling or emigrating to North America. Furthermore, with the benefit of my glasses I could see that the forward part of the ship where the cheering crew were situated, and now became aware that the long mid-ships section had countless masses of faces at the rails – these were the passengers themselves , and it looked as though all two-thousand-plus of them were on deck to celebrate the departure. Once more, as I click-clicked my way fully abreast of them, the crew’s cheers rose to a tumultuous crescendo. Despite my virtual helplessness and acute embarrassment, I suddenly saw the funny side of the all this, so I looked up and give them all a wave and a wobbly attempt at a saucy kick of my heel. My audience erupted! As one man, they responded with the hugest cheer I’d ever heard. All of this ribald cacophony from the forward part of the ship was now attracting the passengers and relatives alike, lining either side of my route. But just then I remembered my beloved Clarence. What had he said? “Find the row of port-holes below the name “Queen Elizabeth”, count seven port-holes going aft from the letter “Q”, and that’s me!” I paused in my tiny paces as I looked for Clarence’s port-hole. Yes! There was a face – and it was Clarence giving me a huge grin and a thumbs-up sign! He motioned me to keep walking and a long camera lens temporarily pointed out at me, obscuring his face. Then he blew me countless kisses and stuck his arm right out of the porthole to give me such a lovely wave goodbye. I got my little embroidered hanky out of my handbag and waved it back at him. Suddenly I felt tears of emotion pricking my eyes – it was all so overwhelming! In fact, I had stop waving the hanky to use it for drying my eyes. As I say, the crew’s ribald tumult had draw the attention of the countless well-wishers on my left and passengers on my right to me failing to master my mega heels! As I continued teetering along the quay between both audiences, they had a ringside seat of my faltering progress, and they all started cheering too! First of all I thought they were generally cheering each other, but then I noticed with a start that the hundreds of eyes on either side were all looking down at me and my spectacular shoes! Many of them had the customary streamers to cascade from ship to shore, but some of them started using them to cascade me! I thought “What the heck!” and entered into the spirit of it by looking up to right and left and waving at them like a film star. If I’d been in my 4 ¾” ‘Alps’, I’d have treated them to some saucy ‘Catwalk flips’ of my heels, but I didn’t dare risk it in those 6” heels – I really would have taken a serious tumble. But nevertheless, looking up at my audience was my undoing. I had thought that the benefit of the ¾” wide bottoms to the Bettie Page heels was that that were too thick to get stuck between paving stones. But I had forgotten about tram-lines! Running along the entire quayside was a pair of tramlines for the cargo-loading crane to move up and down. Suddenly “Stog” – my right heel was jammed into the iron tram-line! A cheer went up from the hundreds of onlookers that was just as loud as the crew’s had been! Luckily I was already having to totter forward so slowly that this time I didn’t walk out of it, I just stood there trapped! Two or three officials started springing towards me, but luckily I managed to free my heel myself before they reached me. Upon this happening, another almighty cheer went up from everyone, and I looked up and waved at all the many hundreds of happy, smiling faces. Although the officials hadn’t quite reached me in time to help, they took a bow and received their own special cheer too! By this time I was conscious that all the muscles in my body were tiring fast, and I could not sustain the tremendous effort of remaining erect in those 6” heels for much longer. My ankles and insteps had never been forced into such an unnatural position before. They felt as tightly stretched as a drum. But fortunately, at last I was now abreast of the quayside entrance into the terminal building, and just as I sought refuge in there, the “Queen Elizabeth” began drawing away from the quay and all eyes now moved from me to the passengers and onlookers waving “Goodbye” or “Farewell” to each other. As I reached the coffee lounge, and sat down, I had never, ever been more grateful and relieved to take the weight off my feet. My muscles were suddenly able to relax from the ordeal of combating the forward-thrust of those amazing 6” heels, and they all started quivering and trembling from the effort that they had just made. As I sipped a cup of coffee, despite all the embarrassment verging on humiliation from walking so awkwardly, and the sheer physical ordeal, in a funny sort of way I felt a real sense of triumph and even exhilaration at my achievement! With no proper practice or training whatsoever, I’d actually walked a full two or three hundred yards in high heels with the magic height of six inches! There was something very sexy about that vast crowd all following every minute step of my high-heeled shoes. Mind you, it was only during my second coffee that I suddenly reminded myself with a shock that I’d only got to the terminal building and not all the way back to London and to my home on Telegraph Hill! Love, Lucy Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
Lucy Posted June 17, 2004 Posted June 17, 2004 Hi Everyone! I can hardly believe that I’ve now been on Jenny’s Forum for about a year now, and that in the process of writing my “Life in High Heels” story, I’ve reached my 50th chapter! Chapter 49 received another overwhelming flood of replies. My thanks to Jim, RPM, Mario, “Admirer”, Paul, Heelfan, Sinkem, Stu, Carl J, Erica, Candice and Serenity for their kind comments, and on MegaForums to repliers Dawn HH and Jeff M. Here is Chapter 50: As I sat in the Southampton TransAtlantic Terminal finishing my second coffee, I felt my excitement coming back under control and I paused to look really closely at my new 6” high heeled court shoes for the first time. With legs crossed, I gazed down at my shoe, twisting my foot this way and that to see it from all angles. This pair fitted perfectly, and being made in the rounded style of the early fifties, the toe-box was very comfortable and did not pinch my toes. As the shoe’s toe did not project beyond my own toes, the toe-box was as short as it could be, making the heel look even higher by comparison; The uppers were fairly low-cut, but not nearly as low as “Pin and Needle” which had revealed considerable toe-cleavage. The uppers were in very high quality black calf leather, but it was the incredible heels that dominated the shoes, and looked unbelievably high as I sat wearing them! Visually, I had to admit that I’d never seen anything so stunning! No wonder those hundreds and hundreds of people had been cheering me as I teetered along in them so precariously! Seeing those heels looking so toweringly enormous on my little feet in that peaceful lounge, I could hardly believe that I’d managed to walk in them at all! Oh dear! I was aware that my train to London would be leaving in less than an hour, and the “Betties” had already made all my muscles and sinews feel strained virtually to the limit. How could I totter my way to the station platform and walk it? I deliberately returned my coffee cup to the counter, gingerly mincing over to assess my ability to manage the imminent journey in 6” heels. Aaargh! – they now felt 7” or 8” high! “This is crazy!” I said to myself, gratefully lurching the last pace forwards to steady myself against the counter. Once there, I held on tight and rocked my heels from side to side to ease my fully-tensioned ankles. Then tried leaning both shoes inwards towards each other (what Jenny calls “leaning two bicycles together”) to greatly lessen the effective height of the heels whilst standing there. This took more doing than when wearing my familiar stilettos, because the broader “Bettie Page” heels tried to stabilise me, so ironically they were now hindering me rather than helping! I comforted myself by murmering “Well, Loo, in here at least you can quietly cheat these heels inwards without those crowds noticing”. But there was someone very much noticing! I was suddenly aware that a young married couple at the table beside me were gazing transfixed at my “Betties”, and were following every little move I made in them, looking totally fascinated! “Pardon me” hesitated the girl, “We brought Ron’s parents down to the ship, and whilst waving at them sailing off, we looked down and saw your ‘exhibition walk’ in those amazing high heels you’re wearing. Ron says he’d never seen anything so attractive” (big blush from Ron) “So he wants to get a pair for me” she giggled very nervously, “Can we buy them somewhere, or were they specially issued to you by the shipping company for you to do those appearances in?”. I burst out laughing “No” I said, “Despite this nautical-looking navy blue suit I’m wearing, I don’t work for Cunard, and as for the ‘walk’, I was trying to find my way off the quay and I’ve never worn these shoes in my life before. They were given to me less than an hour ago by my boyfriend”. They looked down to gaze in wonderment at my shoes again, and I noticed to my embarrassment than I was still standing with the heels angled inwards at 45 degrees, so I hastily uprighted them again. “I’ve never seen anything so attractive!” re-iterate Ron. “But” hesitated the girl sheepishly, “Aren’t they difficult to walk in?”. “Well, that’s the trouble” I said, “I’ve only got small size 5 feet, and the sheer strain of having my insteps and ankles pushed up to this beyond-vertical position is already getting very difficult to sustain. In fact, I’m very worried about whether I can hold out in them long enough to get home to London”. “Look!” burst in Ron, “Tell you what! Don’t worry about that - our car is in the car park. We are motoring back up to Royston, North of London . We have to pass by London so we can offer you a lift to one of the West London Underground stations at least, can’t we Beryl?”. I was so grateful, as it was all I could do just to teeter the short distance to their car. They insisted on seating me in the place-of-honour in the front, with Beryl sitting in the back. As Ron drove the speeding car northwards, they continued to chat about my ‘Betties’. “Can I actually hold one of your amazing shoes?” asked Beryl sheepishly. “Of course!” I chuckled, slipping off my left shoe and passing it back over my shoulder. The car swerved violently and d“Whoooops! Sorry!” yelled Ron. Instead of being on the road, his eyes had been staring at my shoe as it passed back behind him to Beryl. Then I noticed Ron surruptitiously leaning towards me to steal numerous glances into my foot-well to peep at my remaining right shoe. I thought to myself “I’d better not start dangling, otherwise he’ll have us off the road altogether!”, so I said to Beryl “So don’t you wear high heels already then?”. “Oh yes” said Beryl, fondling my shoe in her hands, “I didn’t used to, but since we got married Ron has encouraged me to start wearing heels – lowish at first and then higher. I didn’t see the point at first, but when I started wearing stilettos of 3” and over, things got more exciting, didn’t they Ron?”. “You can say that again!” enthused Ron. Beryl continued “But I haven’t been able to go much higher than 4” heels, because the small towns in our country area don’t stock anything higher, which has got Ron increasingly frustrated as time has gone on, hasn’t it Ron?”. Ron started looking very guilty and said “Well, it’s just that…” “Look” I interrupted, “I fully understand. It’s exactly like me and my Clarence except that I was already wearing higher-than-average heels before we met. It’s great to enter into the spirit of it by wearing and teasing and pleasing your fella with seductive high heels!” They both looked so relieved that I already knew exactly what they were trying to say. I explained that my “Betties” were specially-made in New York at unimaginable expense, but I told them all about Regent Shoes and their stunning high heels, and about Velma and Madeline and all the other fascinating customers. “Wow” they both exclaimed simoultaneously, and they said they would try to go there to equip Beryl as their very earliest opportunity. Ron looked like the cat that had swallowed the cream! All the shoeie chatting had made the journey fly by, and all to soon they were dropping me off at Ealing Broadway tube station from which I could catch a District Line train to change at Charing Cross. As my 6” heels stepped out of Ron’s car I thanked them profusely and gave them my New Cross telephone number. I teetered from across from the road to the station entrance, looked back and Ron and Beryl were sitting in their stationary car still gazing in fascination at my teetery high-heeled progress. I gave them a final wave, bought my ticket and tackled the ordeal of descending to the underground platform. I always find that in all high heels it is much more difficult to go down stairs than it is up, and 6” heels magnified that enormously. On the underground train, I had the misfortune to share the carriage with a gang of young ruffians who spotted my unusual heels and plagued me mercilessly. “Fancy a good time dearie?” and “Come and see me sometime!” they taunted and chanted. Fortunately the got out before the train reached central London. Whilst changing trains with virtually spent ankles at Charing Cross Station, I’d never seen so many hundreds of heads turning towards me and eyes gaping at me. I telephone Velma and Madeline to tell them I’d be back soon (with difficulty!), again leaning my heels inwards in the telephone box to ease my ankles! As I emerged from New Cross Station, every muscle in my feet and legs was searing with tension, and I did not know how in heaven’s name I was going to walk the quarter-mile up Pepys Road to the top of Telegraph Hill. But the cavalry were at the rescue, Velma and Madeline had come to meet me outside the station, and Velma said “Here, I thought you might want to change down into your 4” heels which I’ve brought along. I had never felt so relieved! I had the four-inchers on in a trice, and after the 6” “Betties” they felt as flat as a pancake! And of course, typical Madeline! - as soon as I changed out of my “Betties”, Madeline had them on her own feet and shot off ahead of us up the hill with knees and bottom sticking out, arms flailing for balance, and uttering plenty of giggles and “Whoopses”. As we laughed at Madeline’s antics, Velma said to me “What simply amazing shoes Loo!”. I replied “Well if there’s one thing I’ve learned today, it is that if you want maximum attention from every single stranger as far as the eye can see, try tottering along amongst London's public in 6” heels!”. Love, Lucy Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
Lucy Posted June 23, 2004 Posted June 23, 2004 Hi Everyone! Firstly, my heartfelt thanks to everyone who replied to my Chapter 50 – Jim, RPM, Erica, Candice, Sinkem, Puffer, Stu and Paul, and also to Dawn and Mickey who replied on MegaForums. Secondly, my equally sincere thanks for the congratulations and good wishes on my reaching my 50th Chapter from Heelfan, Stu, RPM and Paul. I’ve been on Jenny's Forum for over a year now, and you all seem like old friends! Here’s Chapter 51: Following my debut in 6” heels when seeing Clarence off on the “Queen Elizabeth”, I missed him more than ever. I perched those “Bettie Page” shoes on my bedroom mantle-piece where I could see them from my bed every night to remind me that Clarence had given them to me. The incredible 6” heels and short toe-box made the proportions of the shoes look fantastic and surreal. I could hardly believe they were really mine, and kept wondering how on earth I’d managed to walk in them at all! One night, I remember my bedroom being plunged into darkness because we had a sudden power cut. I lit a candle on my bedside cabinet and the guttering, flickering flame made shadows of the two astonishing shoes dance around on the wall of the chimney-breast. In those days, there were many tugs and cargo ships plying up and down the River Thames past New Cross, now sadly all gone. It must have been foggy that night, because the ship’s whistles and hooters and fog-horns echoed from the river up Telegraph Hill into my bedroom, plus the distant clank-clank-clanking sounds of goods wagons being marshalled along the London Docks into railway sidings by puffing steam engines. As long as I live, I will never forget lying alone and naked under the sheets, being transported into a macabre, shadowy make-believe world of eerie clanks, ghostly sirens and flickering flames with everything being dominated by those whirling, dancing, demonic shoe shadows! I reached within the bed for a non-existent Clarence, shed a tear of loneliness and eventually drifted into sleep amidst that devil’s carnival of sounds and the leaping spectres of high heeled shoes. The following morning when I got up for work, I was back on reassuring planet Earth, and very bright and cheerful it was too. The Easter sun was streaming into the kitchen and Madeline had made the breakfast (partly as a “Sorry” for previously kidnapping my “Betties”, I suspected!). “Listen you two” exclaimed Velma, “To help take Loo’s mind off Clarence’s absence, it’s the Dail Mail’s Ideal Home Exhibition at Olympia this week, so let’s all go along on Saturday!”. Well, why not, though Madeline and I, so bright and early that weekend we dressed in some breezy tops and colourful knee-length skirts. Velma and I, mindful of all the walking and standing at exhibitions contented ourselves with our 4 ¾” stiletto ‘Alps’. Even scatty Madeline saw sense and denied herself her usual 5 ½” heels and slipped her feet into her own pair of ‘Alps’ that she’d recently purchased at Regent shoes. Also, shortly before, Madeline had been warned by the Hertfordshire health resort physiotherapist that her tendon-shortening problems would worsen if she did not do the tendon stretching exercises and ease up on wearing her highest heels. The three of us gigglingly click-click-clicked our ‘Alps’ down the usual long steepness of Pepys Road, playing “Don’t step on the cracks” between all the paving stones. At Charing Cross train station we had to change from British Rail to the London Underground District Line for Kensington Olympia which meant us heel-tottering down the dreaded Villiers Street to Embankment tube station. Funnily enough, Puffer has just been communicating with me about Villiers Street, which, when descending in high heels, always seems twice as steep as Pepys Road down Telegraph Hill! “My God” said Velma, “This slope is nigh-on impossible - I’d never have managed it in my five-and-a-half inchers!”. I said “Try my going-downhill-trick of tilting inwards on both heels to lessen the effect of the slope”. Velma had long learned that dodge from me and the pair of us did it virtually automatically, but Madeline overdid it, and suddenly let out a loud squeal. To our horror both of her ‘Alps’ stilettos collapsed inwards, wrenching her ankles. The pavement was thronged with gentlemen passers-by. The spectacle of three girls trying to totter down that villainous slope in very high stiletto heels was probably eye-catching enough, but when one of them failed completely it seemed to attract the attention and amusement of the entire street! Whilst being helped back on to her feet by Velma and me, Madeline was conscious of what seemed like the eyes of a million men on her shoes. Her face reddened like a beetroot with sheer humilation and shame. I was furious with myself, firstly because I had failed to warn Madeline about Villiers Street, having myself seen other girls having similar catastrophes trying to come down it, , as already mentioned in my Chapter 22 (there was a grandstand view from one of my favourite coffee shops half-way down), and secondly because I shouldn’t have expected Madeline to be able to control leaning stilettos instantly on such a steep incline. “Oh I’m so sorry Madeline” I blurted, and Velma and I grabbed an arm each and helped Madeline manage somehow to limp and hobble down to the tube platform. As we sat waiting for the train, Madeline said “That was a dreadful thing I did!”. “Yes” I sympathised, “How badly are your poor ankles hurting”. “No” said Madeline, “I don’t mean my ankles, in fact they’re getting over it quite well – it was the sheer embarrassment of turning over my high stilettos in front of all those people! I’ve never felt such an idiot or so ashamed!”. “Do you want us to take you back home?” asked a worried Velma. “No!” Said Madeline, “I’m a tough old stick and I don’t think I’ve broken or badly sprained anything. It was the sudden shock more than anything else. Look, here comes the Olympia train, let’s get going!”. The train duly took us to the special end-of-line terminus beside the vast Olympia exhibition halls in Kensington, West London. We click-click-clicked along the side of the complex and around the corner to the entrance, with Madeline still wearing her ‘Alps’ but limping noticeably. Fortunately we were nice and early, so the queue hadn’t become too enormous. Upon entering the first huge, lofty hall, we came upon hundreds of exhibition stands, but we we struck by how little relevance many of them had to ideal homes! We hoped to find things to improve our rented 3-bedroomed house, and maybe one or two things for the rear garden. But early on we were confronted by stands selling electronic organs, plastic throw-away boomerangs that came back to you, baked potatoes of various English varieties sponsored by the Potato Marketing Board, a demonstration by an ancient, wizened Chinaman in making those incredible Chinese ivory puzzle-balls with many concentric spheres of ivory of different patterns within each other, and the BBC had an outside broadcast enclosed theatre area where they were doing live broadcasts from a different famous jazz bands. We saw the Chris Barber Jazz Band, and later on Mr Acker Bilk and his Paramount Jazz Band. They were great! As we walked deeper and deeper into the exhibition, we gradually started finding the sorts of home-improvement items we had been looking for. It was there that we saw our first dish-washer being demonstrated! “Oooh look!” said Velma, stifling a shriek “There’s Hattie Jaques, the film star!”. Hattie Jaques was an extremely large comedienne who starred as the formidable matron in the “Carry On” films, and with Eric Sykes on television. As she walked past us along the aisle, we noticed that despite her huge weight and size, she was wearing 3 ½” stiletto heels. As we had all suffered from “toe burn” from time to time, we wondered what it must have been like for her with all that weight pressing down into the toe-box of her court shoes! Most of the public had been more sensible than Hattie Jaques and us, and because of a whole day of trudging along and standing, they were in low and flat shoes. However, some of the glamour-girls on the exhibition stands wore some lovely shoes! We got chatting to some of them here and there, asking where they got there shoes and vice-versa. They all loved our ‘Alps’, but were surprised that all three of us were wearing them for a whole day’s walking around the exhibition. By mid-afternoon, Madeline’s right ankle was in a really bad way. Despite her earlier assurances that she had survived her heel-collapse in Villiers Street, it was looking noticeably purple and swollen. Just then, from the masses behind us, we heard an imperious “Madeline!”. Madeline spun round and hissed to us “Oh no! It’s aunty Claudinia – she’s even worse than my mother – I’d forgotten that she lives nearby in Chiswick!”. A formidable twin-set-and-pearls-and-handbag battleaxe of a lady bustled out of the exhibition crowds towards us, ignored Velma and me, and with her face contorted in fury thundered “MADELINE! – What is the meaning of this! What on earth are you doing limping along on those tarty, unseemly high heeled shoes? I’ve never seen anything like them! You’re a spectacle! It’s a family disgrace! And look at that ankle! And who are these people? What your mother going to say when she hears about this?!!!!” Love, Lucy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
Lucy Posted July 30, 2004 Posted July 30, 2004 Hi one and all! So sorry that business pressures have delayed this chapter for so long!. My warmest thanks to all the repliers to my Chapter 51: Puffer, Paul, RPM, Sinkem, Erica, Candice, Allu, Jeff M and Stu, and to those who replied to the same chapter duplicated on to MegaForums: Dawn & Mickey and Jeff M. And thank you so much Paul NE, who sent me a "Happy Birthday" PM this week for my 60th Birthday. Having reached the dreaded "Big Six Oh", I was going to keep quiet about it, but Paul's message was one of the loveliest things anyone has ever sent me, so I drank a special toast to him, and Thank You Again Paul! Here’s Chapter 52: After giving Madeline and her high-stiletto-wearing a thorough drubbing-down at the Ideal Home Exhibition, Madeline’s aunt stormed off back into the crowd, her face still twisted in rage. We tried to enjoy the rest of the visit, but Aunty Claudinia’s outburst had thoroughly dampened our spirits. Nevertheless, We bought some cushion covers, some seeds for the garden, a big tea towel calendar to hang in the kitchen, a spice rack and a clothes-pegs bag into which we put the dozens on leaflets that we had been collecting on our way round. But before leaving, we cheered up upon finding the most useful thing of all – a stall was selling large transparent plastic shoe-holders for our shoe collections. They are commonplace these days, but we’d never seen them before. “How modern” we exclaimed. They hang in your wardrobe or on the back of your bedroom door with a hook at the top and plastic pockets for all your pairs of shoes. Catching sight of us standing in our 4 ¾” ‘Alps’, the demonstrator bellowed “Now ladies and gentlemen, look at these three loverly girls for instance! Fashionable girls like this are bound to have huge shoe collections, and these holders will be just what they’re looking for!” The crowd all turned and looking downwards at our high heels, registering expressions of surprise and interest at seeing three pairs of unusually high heels all being worn together. “Step up this way girls” shouted the jolly salesman, “And slip your shoes off!”, so we dutifully teetered on to his carpeted stand and did so (with great relief on Madeline’s part). He immediately grabbed our shoes and demonstrated to everyone how they could be popped into the plastic pockets with the heels hooked over the top and projecting outwards in a saucy fashion. “Look everybody”, he said “These loverly girls can put all their loverly shoes into these holders with their loverly high heels visible, and can see exactly which ones are which!. Cummon ladies and gents, only seven shillings and sixpence a holder”. The crowd loved it and surged forward, thrusting money at the man from all directions. After dispensing countless holders, the man thundered “Thank you, thank you, thank you! And now what about a special round of applause for these three loverly ladies and their loverly high heeled shoes!” The little crowd gave us a tumultuous ovation, plus some cheers and enthusiastic grins from the fellas. Velma and I loved it, but Madeline was blushing with embarrassment again due to the shame of her purple sprained ankle. Anyway, she bought a shoe-holder for herself, Velma bought two and I bought three! The nice man gave us a 10% discount for helping him sell so many! Back at our house on Telegraph Hill, those holders proved invaluable, and were promptly to be seen hanging behind our bedroom doors bristling with high heels. I hung my other two from the picture rail running around my bedroom wall, and it was lovely to be able to survey my collection of heels all visible at the same time! “So impressive!” I thought to myself. Within twenty-four hours of being confronted by her formidable Aunty Claudinia, Madeline was telephoned by her own formidable mother. “I knew it!” Madeline groaned to us, “They’re both insisting on coming here for Sunday tea tomorrow to have an inquest on why I’ve gone ‘off the rails’ and was wearing a ‘loud’ skirt that was too short and ‘common’ stiletto heels that were too high! And all I was doing was enjoying wearing the same as you too and other modern girls!”. At the appointed hour of 4 pm, the two battleaxe sisters dutifully arrived at our house and rang the bell. I answered the door and saw that they were wearing their “Sunday Best” – tweedy tops, long skirts, pearls, beige handbags that snapped shut with two little metal knobs, old-fashioned hats with hatpins stuck into them and stout “sensible” beige shoes with low clumpy heels. They looked down at my favourite stiletto-heeled “house-mules” and scowled. I simply smiled sweetly, invited then through to the dining table bearing the tea things and some lovely little cakes that Velma had made especially. Velma also beamed at the daunting duo and called Madeline from her room. Having expected her to meekly emerge in her lowest, most sensible shoes, I was speechless when she strode in sporting her very shortest skirt and her new pair of sky-blue patent leather Regent Shoes with the low-cut toes and little bows and the towering 5 ½” stiletto heels! “Good Heavens Girl!” immediately roared Madelin’s mother “Just look at you! I couldn’t believe it when your aunt Claudinia said you’d gone to the dogs. Talk about holding yourself cheap! I’ve never seen so much leg and such high tarty heels on a lady! What in Heaven’s name has possessed you to wobble around in those?”. Aunty Claudinia chipped in with “What’s got into you? You’re a disgrace to the family name!”. Velma and I shrank back in embarrassment and I said “Look, Velma and I better see to the kitchen and leave you three to have your family chat!”. “No!”, said Madeline “Please stay – I want you to hear this”. And she squared up to her mother and aunt with her chin thrust forward a look of determination on her face that we’d never seen before. “Right!” she said firmly “Now for the first time in your lives, it’s you turn to listen to me! It’s not me that is the family disgrace, it is you two old-fashioned, frumpy, stick-in-the muds”. Mother and aunt did not know what hit them or how to react. They recoiled backwards on the settee with their mouths open like goldfish. “Throughout my teenage years I was constantly ashamed of being the daughter and the niece of two such dowdy, unattractive, mean, unloving, stuck-up, drab ladies as you two, but your selfish, uncaring, egotistical natures made it far worse when for all those years you inflicted your ghastly old-fashioned dress sense on me too. Who else but you pair of harsh prudes would humiliate a teenager like me by getting them to dress in the same horrible pre-war styles that you cling on to? Do you really want to know why I now dress like this? Well, for the first time in my life, I’m truly happy! I can mingle with Lucy and Velma and all the other girls of my own age without getting laughed-at or mocked. These short, brightly-coloured skirts and these lovely high stiletto heels make me feel just as modern as all the other girls. And also, for the first time in my life, these clothes, and the kindness and admiration showered on me by these two and my other new friends have given me confidence. I’m finally getting the affection and respect from everyone that I never got during all those years at home. And I’m suddenly enjoying being me – five-and-a-half inch heels and all! I’m in a happy well-paid job and I’ve got happy flat-mates to come home to and I’ve just made a decision! Until such time as one or both of you can find it in yourselves to be as happy and respectful towards me as Lucy and Velma here, I don’t want either of you in my life, so please LEAVE!”. Amazingly, the two battleaxes were so flabbergasted that they simply crumpled-up into defeat and speechlessness. They shuffled out towards the front door, barely reacting as Velma and I helped them into their coats and saw them retreat down Pepy’s Road in a dazed trance. We dashed back in to Madeline and shouted “Well done – that was amazing!”. Madeline gave us a triumphant smile, but unfortunately her bravado promptly evaporated and she broke down into tears after the sheer emotion of the event. She was quivering with shock. She didn’t calm down until I made her drink glass of cooking sherry that I’d found in the kitchen. The most astonishing event of all was still to follow a few days afterwards. Madeline actually got a profound apology from her mother and aunt! They said they realised what awful, unkind influences they had been, and how they wished they had been more understanding of her young generation and the modern fashions. They pleaded with her to heal-up the family rift, and said they would never criticise her fashion choices again, including her incredibly high heels! Love, Lucy Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
Lucy Posted October 21, 2004 Posted October 21, 2004 Hi one and all! So sorry for such a very long absence! Mummy (over eighty!) contracted pneumonia a while back, and it left her alarmingly weak, so I’ve been going down to Surrey every weekend to nurse her better. Thank goodness she’s pulling-round now, but for weeks and weeks I’ve been returning to London every Monday morning to piles of work and undone domestic chores! Anyway I hope to resume my story here now, and then as and when time permits! My warmest thanks to all the repliers to my Chapter 52, and to my “Sexiest Heels Road-Test” report, and to those posting and PMing their good wishes, RPM, Erica (congratulations on your marriage and baby-to-be!), Stu, Sinkem, Allu, Paul North-East (congratulations on your “Memories” story!), Bubba136, Shyguy, Raincat, Bobsmith, Rob, JeffM, Bladerunner, jmc, Georgia Marie, DawnHH and Mickey (speedy recovery after your kidney operation, Mickey!), Puffer, Smudgear, Patience, Rich, Anita C., highHEELman, Brianne cd, Genebujold and Jim. To those newcomers who don't know me yet, I’m a London businesswoman now aged 60 who has been writing her life-story in high heels. Chapter one started as a schoolgirl in the first stiletto heel boom of the mid 1950s, and by Chapter 52 I had got up to 1964 when my boyfriend Clarence had just bought me my first 6” heels. As I write each chapter, I post it on Jenny's lovely Forum: http://members3.boardhost.com/jennyheels/?982958163 and then it is also copied here to build up all the chapters into a "book". Here's Chapter 53: CHAPTER 53 The Friday evening after Madeline had the show-down with her Mother and Aunt about her ultra-high heels, our phone rang and it was my long-lost Clarence! “Hello Betty Page!” he chuckled, obviously referring to have given me the wonderful 6” “Betty Page” heels before he sailed to New York on the Queen Elizabeth. “We’ve just arrived back in Southampton. I was the first in line to use the officer’s telephone connection! Can you come to my mews cottage at say, 10.30 tomorrow morning? And bring your new ‘Six Inch Bettys’ with you! It’s a surprise day!” “I wonder what he’s got in store for you!” mused Velma and Madeline. It’s silly really, but that night I could hardly sleep. I got so excited every time I was about to see Clarence! On the Saturday morning, I duly set out across London wearing one of my pairs of trusty 4 ¾” stiletto-heeled “Alps” courts but duly carrying my fantastic new “Six Inch Bettys” in a bag, as instructed. As usual, I entered Clarence’s mews lane, and teetered and wobbled my way over the cobblestones to his cottage door at the far end and knocked at his brass high heel doorknocker. Instantly a beaming Clarence opened it and I flung myself into his open arms. He lifted me up bodily and swung me into the cottage. We kissed each other to death as though we’d been separated for two years instead of for only two weeks. Then as my eyes adjusted from the sunlight to the darker sitting-room, something was different. My goodness! Clarence’s big framed picture of Marilyn Monroe in high heels was missing. Instead, in it’s place was an even bigger framed enlarged photograph. It was me! I was making my debut in those Betty Page 6” heels! Of course! My mind sprang back to waving goodbye at Clarence’s departing ship at the Cunard Ocean Terminal and seeing a telephoto lense pointing at me out of his port-hole! “Good eh?” laughed Clarence. “I got the ship’s photography chaps to do that enlargement in their darkroom, and I bought the frame over in Edgware Road first thing this morning”.“Well” I said, “That’s amazing ….I don’t know what to say – I’m speechless!”. I gazed at the picture which dominated the whole room. “But oh dear Clarence” I wailed, “Look at my unnatural posture and bent knees! It was my first time ever in 6” heels and I look so awkward in them!”. “Nonsense!” enthused Clarence, “You are one fantastic lady! I don’t know any other girl who would even try to wear them, let alone endeavour to walk right along the entire quayside like that! It’s the best photograph I’ve ever taken – the best girl in the world wearing the sexiest shoes in the world!”. I’d never seen Clarence look so flushed and excited. He lovingly put his strong manly arms around me and lowered me fondly on to his settee. What happened at that point in the day must be left to the reader’s imagination! Somewhat later, and when we had made ourselves look more respectable again, Clarence said “And now on to the surprise that I mentioned on the phone last night”. “Oh” I said, “Wasn’t that picture it then?”. “No” chortled Clarence “The surprise is that Doug, one of my catering officer chums has loaned me his Aston Martin sports car for the weekend, and we’re off to Windsor the see Windsor Castle and to see Nell Gwyn’s house and to have a slap-up meal there too!”. Before I could gasp a reaction, Clarence added “But on one condition! That you promise to wear your 6” Betty’s throughout the trip! The perfect start towards your training you to get those knees straight!”. So deliriously happy was I that I breathed “Oh yes, yes, yes Clarence” and kissed him and put on my incredible new mega-high 6” heels and tottered over to the sapphire-blue Aston Martin outside before realising that Windsor was going to be all hills and steep slopes and impossible ups and downs everywhere! I was so head-over-heels in love, and hypnotised by the feel of those wonderfully sensuous leather shoes on my feet, and the extravagant leather of the Aston Martin’s passenger seat, and Clarence’s masterful driving that I didn’t heed the message in the title of a song that was popular at that time in the 1960s: “Fools Rush in Where Angels Fear To Tread!”. More very soon I hope, Love, Lucy Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
Lucy Posted October 24, 2004 Posted October 24, 2004 Posted by Lucy H. F. on October 29, 2004, 5:33:41 CHAPTER 54 Hi from Heelfan! Chapter 53 finished with the words “Fools Rush in Where Angels Fear To Tread”, and how apt that was. Eighteen months ago, I rushed in and started writing the Lucy Stories, prompted by an innocent question from Fred, and never realising the full extent of the fan club that would emerge to follow her stories with a passion. Then a week ago I was suddenly unceremoniously unmasked and de-frocked (due to scattily signing a Lucy posting as “Heelfan”!) so here I am, feeling like a fool! Thank you to Fred and Sinkem for replying to Chapter 53, and to all of those who have replied and debated the issues of the unmasking of this cyberspace fraudster on Megaforums and on Jenny’s Forum: JeffM, Bubba136, DawnHH, hjt101, nhoj62, Ellen-Jay, Raincat, Paul (North-East), Jinxie Kat, Rand, Chris 100575, Anita C., Shyguy, TXT-1, Miko, Paul, Puffer, RPM, Erica, Stu, Allu and moderator Firefox. I fully deserved to be called a rotter and hounded off the boards, but to my amazement, the majority of you have been astonishingly forgiving and wish me to carry with Lucy’s Story! This shows what a wonderfully tolerant and kind bunch most heely people are! – Thank you so much! I think it helped when I said in all sincerity that ALL of the heel-wearing events in Lucy’s Story actually happened to real girls in my life, but that as I felt unable to name them all individually which would have invaded their privacy and made for very disjointed postings, I rolled them all into the one heroin “Lucy” and told it all in the first person. My suggestion of carrying on in that fashion (to give continuity to the book), but offering some explanatory background before each chapter has been met with heartening approval. So here we go, Chapter 54: INTRODUCTION Lucy’s Story began when I was about twelve, and first main “Lucy” was based on Mary, the girl who lived below us in our the ground floor flat in Dorking, Surrey and stole her mum’s brown 4” stilettos to attend the school dance, and progressed to bolder heely adventures. The second main “Lucy” was my girlfriend who attended the nearby (“Miss Sheridan’s) secretarial academy in wonderful high heels. That building is still there in Horsham Road, but now converted to residential use. The third main “Lucy” was the fantastic girl I spotted in Chapter 32, when playing the double bass in the Connaught Rooms, Piccadilly, and shot out to find her when the band finished. Soon after that, I became a ship’s musician on the “Queen Elizabeth” and spent several wonderful years sailing between Southampton and New York every two weeks, seeing countless lady passengers in incredible heels, and looking forward to re-uniting with my fantastic London girlfriend every two weeks, buying her ever-better high heels and dreaming-up exciting things to do during each leave. Which brings us to Chapter 54. London Airport was later re-named “Heathrow” to distinguish it from Gatwick and Stansted, and the “slingbacks girl” was admired by me when with my father in Windsor a few years previously: Chapter 54 I felt on top of the World! Clarence and I were speeding due Westwards from London in the borrowed sports car, with the wind rushing through our hair and the countryside flashing by. The Aston Martin’s engine surged like a wild tiger and I was almost delirious with happiness. I kept sliding my feet in and out of the “Betty Page” shoes (that Clarence kindly but firmly insisted that I wore that day) to remind myself of the incredibly sensuous steep feel created by those 6” heels. Finally, across the flat reaches of Windsor Great Park, the world famous bulk of Windsor Castle came into view. “But what’s happening?” I bellowed through the rushing slipstream into Clarence’s ear “You seem to be driving us past the Castle”. “Yes” yelled Clarence, “Hold on for another surprise before we hit Windsor!”. His expert hands spun the nippy car a few minutes further west and we soon found ourselves cruising into the car park at London Airport. “Don’t panic” said Clarence, “We’re not flying off anywhere! One of my old catering chums runs the VIP restaurant here. It’s the ideal place for lunch, and we can watch a few planes taking off and landing, but first, do you want to fix your face?”. I gingerly put my 6” heels to the ground (for only the second time in public) and headed for the nearest ladies’ room with the shoes restricting me to the only possible very short, teetering paces. I sensed Clarence’s eyes following my every step. “Oh dear!”, I exclaimed as I saw myself in the mirror. The open sports car had been very eye-watering, and I had black mascara all down my face! Fortunately, my handbag was always well equipped, but I had to work very hard to re-do the ‘plasterwork’, and finally accompanied Clarence up the stairs to the VIP restaurant. Clarence’s restaurant-manager friend Derek shot over all beams and smiles and said I simply had to try their speciality of lobster thermidor. I’d never tried lobster before, but washed down with Champagne it was heavenly! That one lunch made me a lobster addict for the rest of my life, but never have I tasted it so wonderfully prepared as it was on that unforgettable day! All too soon, we were back in the Aston Martin for the short run back to Windsor, this time with Clarence going more slowly so that the eye-watering gale became only a a gently breeze. We glided into the small historic town of Windsor, and with no double yellow lines to worry about in those days, Clarence managed to park near the mighty royal castle. “Ooh look!” said Clarence, pointing at a flagpole above the loftiest tower, “The royal standard is flying. I think that means than the Queen is in residence today!”. Again I lowered my 6” heels to the ground, and we made our way towards the impressive castle entrance. The approach road ascended quite steeply, and I began to panic because in my heels it was very hard not to fall over backwards! The extreme heel-height necessitated the heel bottoms being very close to the toe-box instead of being set much further back like a flat shoe. So steep was the entrance ramp that my body-weight was behind the rear of my heels. I grabbed Clarence’s arm like grim death to steady myself, and he immediately put a muscular arm behind my waist and supported me up the slope. “Thankyou!” I panted, “That could have been very nasty without your help”. “My pleasure!” beamed Clarence, appearing to enjoy the situation immensely. More following immediately, Love, Lucy H. F. Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
Lucy Posted October 29, 2004 Posted October 29, 2004 Posted by Lucy H. F. on October 29, 2004, 5:46:44 Hi Everyone, Heelfan calling! My introduction for Chapter 54 also serves for Chapter 55: CHAPTER 55 Passing through the gate of Windsor Castle, we entered an enormous courtyard and grounds. Many tourists thronged everywhere, including a coach-load of Japanese couples. Their flat shoes made me feel very self-concious and out-of-place in my ostentatious 6” heels, and in fact we found that more and more of the Japanese were noticing my shoes and even began clustering around to have a look! These days, nice smart skirts and high heels are extremely fashionable in Japan, but in the 1960s they must have been an almost unknown experience. The Japanese ladies gazed at my 6” heels with a mixture of interest, fascination and wonderment, whilst the gentlemen appeared to be either hypnotised or virtually beside themselves! They reminded me of the excited little group that had followed Velma, Madeline and me half-way round the British museum some months beforehand. Moments later, their coach driver started shepherding them out of the castle, and as they tore themselves away , they all gave me and Clarence a sea of grins and waves! “Come on Loo” said Clarence, “Let’s go inside”. To enter, we had to walk past a motionless guardsman resplendent in bearskin hat and red tunic. Although the royal guards are world famous for never moving a muscle, Clarence murmered to me that as I had click-click-clicked past , the guard’s eyes had not been able to resist following each of my tottering steps! For the next two or three hours we had a fascinating time exploring the countless and varied rooms, halls, towers and terraces of Windsor Castle. The interiors were superb. We were both captivated by the splendid oil paintings of Rubens, Holbein and Van Dyke. Clarence pointed-out that one of the huge Van Dyke’s depicted a bygone king wearing shoes with bright red high heels! By now, my feet were getting tired! Having my feet forced into such an unnaturally vertical position for several hours on end was stretching and straining all of the sinews around my instep, ankles and calves. However, I bravely carried on. There were countless ancient stone stairs to navigate. As any high-heeled lady will know, going up them was dead easy, one just used the toe-part of ones shoes, but coming back down was a nightmare! Descending stairs in high heels is difficult at the best of times. But not only was I wearing 6” heels but every step was worn into a slope from 900 years of use and this pitched my high-heeled shoes forward on every step. The opposite effect of the entrance ramp was now occurring, and I was terrified that my heels would throw me forwards down the stairs! Again, Clarence came to the rescue, this time walking down immediately in from of me so that I could put both hands on his shoulders. We must have looked like a most comical couple that day, and several people had a good old grin and chuckle at us! However, my shoes did get me one reward. Although Queen Elizabeth was in residence, a few of the state apartments were open to us visitors, but they had superb wooden floors. Just ahead of us were four London girls were just ahead of us all wearing stiletto heels. The custodian banned them from entering and spoiling the floor! However, when our turn came, Clarence pointed out that although higher, my “Betty Page” heels were not as thin as their stilettos and would not puncture the floors. “OK” agreed the man and waved us through, to the utter indignation of the four girls who stood and gaped as my skyscraper heels passed the inspection! In those days, the celebrated royal collection of drawings was housed in a stone-vaulted gallery underneath one of the terraces. Both being most interested in old masters, we avidly admired all the wonderful drawings by Leonardo Da Vinci, Holbein and other. Being familiar with many of them from books, we were surprised at how small many of them were, being often no bigger than the printed reproductions. But it was such a thrill to see them! Lastly, Clarence suggested a stroll around the terraces and battlements. By this time my 6” heels felt 12” high and the balls of my feet had started to scream, but so as not to spoil the magical day, I mustered a smile and said “That would be lovely”. Emerging on to the battlements, the view was stunning. Windsor Castle is on elevated ground like an island set in the middle of the flatness of Windsor Great Park and its wonderful trees. The view goes on for miles. Despite my agonising feet and wobbling on uneven flagstones, the lofty empowerment of those awesome shoes, the sheer grandeur of the castle, the breathtaking view and the romance of the setting sun all made me feel like the happiest girl in the universe! Our exit down the castle’s approach ramp was somewhat ignominious, with Clarence having to walk in front with me staggering along behind him repeating my hands-on-shoulders staircase routine, but we were almost the last people to leave so that there was no-one to laugh at us. “Straighten those knees” barked Clarence jokingly. “Have a heart!” I retorted, “You ought to try 6” heels sometime. It was difficult enough on the flat along Southampton quayside, let alone expecting me to descend from lofty castles like this!”. It was now dark and we realised we were getting hungry. With Clarence gripping my hand very tightly to support me, and going very slowly to accommodate me teetering progress, we walked a short way down the High Street (more downhill torture) and down into Peascot Street (more downhill torture!) where Clarence knew a nice restaurant. Half-way down, from the opposite pavement suddenly came the most almightly clatter sound. We looked across in alarm, but saw that it was a rather stunning teenage girl in a miniskirt, stockings and clattering along in extremly high steel-tipped stiletto heels with the slingback straps trampled down. She was accompanied by about seven youths of her own age, hero-worshipping her and following her like the tail of a comet. Clearly enjoying her star status (and obviously the local teenage heart-throb) she clattered this way and that, her steel-tipped heels making a loud but very provocative statement, and as we entered the restaurant all those lads were last seen slavishly following the noisy slingbacks everywhere. “Oh Lucy!” said Clarence as we settled into our restaurant chairs “What have I done to deserve such an amazing girl? And seeing you climbing all over that castle in your tight skirt and those 6” heels was mind-blowing! You’re a girl in a million!”. Was this the right time to tell Clarence that this had been the best day in my whole life?. No, better still, ignoring those around us, I leant over, put my arms around Clarence and gave him the longest and best kiss I’d ever given anyone. Love, Lucy H. F. Life is not a rehearsal. Why not use it to present ourselves as smartly and attractively as possible?
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