Since the website went up in 2009 I have had a steady trickle of correspondence, which I answer when I can, generally on a Sunday after tea. Some questions come up more than once, so I have put the common ones here to save people the wait, as I am not always quick with the email. If your question is not covered you are welcome to write to me and I will get to it.
Last updated: February 2014.
How do you think the shoes get there?
This is far and away the most asked question and I understand why people ask it. The honest answer is that I don't think about it, or I try not to. The moment you start guessing you stop looking properly, and the guess gets written down instead of the shoe. What I can tell you is where the shoe was, which foot it was for, what condition it was in and what the weather was doing. That is a full account in my view. How it got there is somebody else's business, and in most cases I expect it is nobody's business at all, which suits me fine.
Do you ever take the shoes home?
No. You can't interfere. I appreciate that to some people a shoe on a wall looks like litter and they'd feel they were doing a good turn by moving it, and I don't criticise anyone for that. But once you start picking things up you're not recording any more, you're collecting, and that is a different hobby. The shoe stays where it is. I have sometimes gone back a month later and found one gone, and that gets noted an' all. Where it went is covered by the answer above.
Do you do repairs, resoling, heels and so on?
I had a very nice email from a lady in Halifax asking whether I could resole her husband's brogues, as she had found the website by searching for shoes. I should say clearly that I am not a cobbler and this is not that sort of website. However, I did not want to leave her stuck, so for anyone else in the same position: there is a good repair man in the arcade off New Street in Huddersfield, near where the key cutter is, and Our Linda has had heels done there twice with no complaints. Take both shoes with you, as they like to match the wear. I wrote back to the lady with the same advice and she was very gracious about the mix-up. I did ask, out of habit, whether both brogues were present and accounted for. They were.
Have you ever found a pair?
No. In four and a bit years of doing this properly I have never once found two shoes together. It is always the one. People find that hard to believe, but I'd ask them to check for themselves next time they pass a shoe at the roadside — you will not see its partner. I have thought about why this should be and then stopped thinking about it, for the reasons given in the first answer.
Addition, October 2021: I have now. A matching pair, brown leather, size ten, laces tied, side by side in a layby near Denby Dale. They are in the register as two entries, which took some deciding. Everything else on this page still stands.
Does a wellington count?
I have reservations about wellingtons and I keep them in a separate ledger. My thinking is this: a wellington is left behind on purpose more often than a shoe is. A man pulls his boots off at the car, one drops, he drives away — there is no mystery in that, it's just carelessness. A shoe is a different matter. A shoe has been done up and undone. I record wellingtons because it would be sloppy not to, but they do not go in the main sequence and I would ask submitters to say clearly if their sighting is a wellington, as it saves me a job.
What do you take with you? Do you go out in bad weather?
A flask of tea with the milk in, sandwiches in foil — cheese and pickle mostly, though I vary it — the notebook, the camera, and lately a Penguin biscuit or two. Our Linda packs the bag. As for weather, yes, I go out in all of it. Bad weather is not a reason to stay in, it is part of the record. A shoe in the rain is telling you something different from a shoe in the sun, and if you only went out on fine days you'd have a very lopsided picture of the situation. I note the conditions every time. Wind is the one that spoils the photographs.
Can I send you a shoe I have found?
Please do not post me the shoe. This has happened once and it caused some awkwardness at home, and in any case it goes against everything set out above — the shoe should have stayed where it was. What I would welcome is a photograph if you can manage one, the location as exact as you can make it, which foot it is for, and the date. Condition and weather are a bonus. One gentleman from Dewsbury has been sending sightings in this manner since last year and his submissions are a model of how it should be done, so it can be done. If you have no camera a clear written description will do — most of mine didn't come out in the early years either and the record survives.
Thank you for your interest. If you have written and not heard back, I will get to you. I do them in order.
Keith Plimmer