The Summer of Love

Memories from the Summer of Love

The White Shoes

Growing up my brother and I didn’t have much in the way of material possessions. I loved my books – still do, but the library provided those. Jim liked making things, go karts, catapults, Guy’s, friends. My clothes were usually courtesy of my cousins who were older than me so I had their dresses, old, used. Cardigans knitted by gran who when she ran out of wool would finish the garment in near enough the same colour. My lovely gran.

Mum was very particular about our shoes though – no second hand shoes, feet measured and although there wasn’t much money, we always had Clark’s. Sturdy black shoes in the winter and sandals in the summer and I think a source of pride for mum and dad whose childhoods were very austere. Mum often re-telling the shame of having to wear her mother’s shoes to school. I hated those Clark’s shoes, dull and boring, the pattern on the front never changed year after year, only the colour, sometimes blue, mostly tan, occasionally red.

Summer 1967 the Summer of Love – I was 9 and my memory fails me to the details but I vaguely remember coveting these beautiful white, round toed most impractical intricately patterned shoes. They had a tiny heel, no horrible thick sensible sole and I just loved them. Whether mum gave in to my whining, snivelling, temper tantrum or whether they were bought with a wedding in mind I can’t remember but I do remember how I felt when I put those shoes on over my white knee length socks. I felt I had it all. I felt the ugly girl who wore glasses and was picked on at school had changed into the most beautiful, elegant princess. I WAS the girl who always had fun in the books I read, I was capable of anything. I felt confident, I wanted to show them off. I was allowed to wear them out to play and did I play. I swung higher than anyone else, I went higher on the climbing frame. I got to 10 in hopscotch without losing once. Those shoes, made a noise when I walked. I sounded like a grown up. Those shoes, those beautiful shoes.

So much has happened in those last 50 years. I married at 18, had 4 children – my firstborn is 40 this week! I struggle with ill health, I’ve lost literally everything and built it all back up again. I’ve laughed, loved, cried. I’ve been alone.

But. Every now and again this bad tempered, insecure, critical, irascible woman looks back and remembers that lonely girl, that Summer of Love and the way she felt buckling up those white shoes.