AWAY DAY TO HAY WAY

Definitely Not A Load of Old Cobblers

I found the advert in a magazine called Repartee, about a year or so ago, looked at the price list and decided to save it for future reference. Of course, Leicester isn't on my doorstep and I made a vow to myself some years ago that I'd never trust myself with a credit card - at the time, neither would my bank, but that's a different story - so phone shopping wasn't exactly easy. Of course, there's always a cheque and the postal service, but then there's also a little voice nagging away in the back of the head, advising caution when it comes to buying anything sight unseen.

In any case, I was up to my eyes in work (not an unusual state of affairs) and had plenty of other things to occupy my mind, plus I had a few pairs of satisfactory shoes and boots that I'd accumulated over the years, so why worry. maybe one day I'd justify driving the better part of 200 miles, just to see if this shoe place was half what it appeared to be. Yeah, one day.

Then I stumbled across their website a couple of weeks back, the way we all stumble across things on the net when we're least expecting them. Family run business, manufacturing all their own footwear, suppliers to the trade, unbelievable prices, sizes to 12 and above (to my American readers, that's big and I should know!). So I bookmarked the site and resolved to find a way to justify that nearly 200 mile drive one day. Yeah, one day. I'd definitely do it. I would.

What decided me to pick up the phone, I don't know. I'd just finished a short story that would be heading up a collection of enforced femininity stories, all written by yours truly under her assorted pen names and I should have been starting work again on the novel I left unfinished when we started the big house renovation project at the beginning of the summer, but, well ... you know how it is, don't you? So I phoned.

My call was answered by Jackie (you can see her picture on their website) and, fairly nervously, despite the anonymity of the phone, I explained the sort of thing I was looking for and the sort of difficulties I generally experienced. I mean, since I was fifteen, I've lived with shoe shop assistants saying: "Well, I've got it in a ten and a half." Oh yeah? Okay, pass me a hacksaw and I'll just take an inch or so off each foot, shall I? Don't they realise that if I wanted a ten and a half I'd ask for a ten and a half and not a 12? Don't they realise I'd give my right leg to be able to get the left one into a ten and a half? Well, very nearly, anyway. And this is just whilst shopping for "ordinary" shoes.

Come my more "fashionable" footwear, it gets worse. Apart from that awkward feeling of going into the place, despite the fact that you know it's people like you that give them their living, there's always the same line. Ten and a half. So why advertise sizes up to 12s? Oh, you can order them, but it takes about 28 days for delivery.

For 28 days, read eight to ten weeks, especially once they've got your money and they won't accept your order without it!

"Size twelve?" Jackie replied. I waited for the inevitable. "No problem, but you may find you need a size bigger in some styles, especially if you have a broader foot."

What? Broader foot? I could scarcely believe what I was hearing! Here, at last, was someone who understood that if you take a size 12 and are over six feet, you're neither petite nor featherweight and a lifetime of inflicting thirteen stone or thereabouts on a pair of unprotesting plates means one thing - broader feet! Okay, we're not talking snowshoes here, but even a quarter of an inch ... oh, why am I telling you all this, I expect you've been there, done that, got the teeshirt and sent the damned shoes back before.

"Do you welcome personal shoppers - in person, I mean?" Nothing like being doubly sure, I suppose.

"Absolutely. We're open from seven in the morning to four in the afternoon through the week," Jackie assured me and went on to explain that they close for an hour for lunch on Fridays and that Saturday opening hours are much shorter.

"I'll be up next week," I said. Then: "How do you fancy a little day trip?" I asked my dearly beloved an hour or two later and explained what I had in mind. "They do stuff in your size as well," I added, temptingly. She takes a size four, but I'm not jealous. Honest!

Well, I'll spare you the grim details of the trip up. They'd opened the Newbury bypass two days earlier and I was a bit premature in rejoicing at the prospect. If I had back every hour I've sat in Newbury traffic jams over the years, I'd probably still be in my mid-twenties (okay, mid forties, but a girl can dream, can't she?).

Not even out of Portsmouth, we had to leave the motorway system to avoid a massive tailback caused by two accidents, they had the road up and closed at Oxford and whoever designed the detour was either mad, on acid, a malicious car-hating bastard, or quite possibly all three. Anyway, we finally got there and the last half hour delay was our own fault, 'cause we came off on the wrong roundabout and treated ourselves to an unintentional tour of the villages laying around the outskirts of Leicester itself - a trip not helped by the fact that we found another set of roadworks, where the guy operating the emergency traffic lights seemed to be allergic to the colour green - in both directions!

The sign over the top of Unit One read Hay Way in big letters and then there was a little sign alongside the door which read: "Welcome and come in - Jackie." A promising start and then, just inside the door, against a background of machines, racks, laths and boxes, this diminutive little lady was just in the act of brewing up a quick round of instants for the workers.

"I'm looking for Jackie," I said, but I knew I'd already found her.

"That's me, duck," she said, holding out her hand. I explained who I was. "Oh of course!" she exclaimed. "You phoned last week. Come on up and let's see what we can do for you." No false welcome, no curiously stage managed "ease", just step over anything that's in the way and take a seat where you can find one. Which happened to be in the middle of these dexion racks full of shoe and boot boxes.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw sizes printed on the ends, everything from eights to 14s (the smaller sizes were at the far end). I thought I'd died and gone to heaven (Boot Hill! Sorry, couldn't resist it.)

Nothing was too much trouble as far as Jackie was concerned. The three of us sat in the corner, trying on this shoe and that boot, deciding on styles, fittings, colours. For once it was my spouse who had to order in her size, rather than be able to collect off the shelf and not yours truly. I found five assorted pairs, ranging from ankle boots to a beautiful late Victorian style "granny" shoe, plus a couple of pairs with lower heels for generally mooching around on days off. Well, I had to justify the fuel bill, didn't I?

We were made to feel greatly welcome from first to last, even before i started spending money and Debbie, Jackie's sister-in-law, made us coffee almost before we were in the door. Hay way is a family run business and it shows, not only in the friendliness displayed, but in the care taken over ensuring that we found what we wanted and in the quality of the workmanship of everything we were shown. Debbie was even sitting at a machine not six feet from where we were sitting ourselves, stitching uppers, or whatever they were.

Eventually, we had to leave, determined to try to work out some way south again that didn't involve Oxford and desperate to make as much headway as possible before the evening rush hour took proper hold, but I could happily of stayed there for hours and I cannpt praise the reception we were given too highly. Hay Way definitely gets a Jenny Jane Five Star Award and we'll be going back in the new year.

Meantime, if you'd like to take a look at the Hay Way website and see for yourself what's available, just click on this link.

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