Barry were over Mirfield way seeing a man about a greenhouse, which is as much as I know about the greenhouse and as much as I asked, and on his way back he passed Ledgard Bridge and there it were. Right brogue, oxblood. He rang me that evening and there were summat in his voice — Barry doesn't rate every shoe equally and nor should he, and an oxblood brogue by a canal bridge is a cut above.
I confirmed it in person the Saturday. Good condition, laces in and tied, the oxblood still holding its colour — a smart shoe for a towpath, as the notebook says, but I don't speculate and I didn't then. It sat by the bridge end as if it had every right to be there, which as far as this register is concerned it had.
The light were kind for once, which round here in September is worth recording, and I photographed the brogue from both sides. Both photographs came out well. It's one of the better-documented shoes of the year on the strength of that light alone.
The notebook ends with a word about Barry's photography, and I'll carry it over because it's fair: it has come on a great deal since 2013, when his first submission arrived looking like it had been taken through a letterbox in fog. His picture of this brogue were honestly usable. But the rule stands and Barry knows it stands — I confirm in person or it doesn't go in. The day the register runs on other men's photographs is the day it's summat else, and I'm not minded to find out what.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.