GIVE me a minute while I dig out my old cobbler’s last and I’ll bang some new irons on the soles of your trusty clogs!
Certainly, I’ve got the repair materials - as kindly forwarded to me by a well-meaning anonymous reader.
Neatly wrapped up in a small plastic sheet were the horseshoe-type clog irons and heel pieces, the sort that could shower sparks when clogs were kicked along the kerbstones.
And, with the mystery gift, a small carton containing dozens of genuine clog-nails, all sharply pointed and with a traditional oval-shaped head to them.
I don’t know who the gift-sender was. But he’d obviously been reading my recent pieces about the dying out of the old wooden-soled footwear of Lancashire.
And the unexpected gift certainly brought memories wafting back for me from boyhood.
Closing my eyes, I almost captured the intoxicating smell of drifting clog-shop dust and the aroma of newly-carved soles and black leather sheets, trays of clog nails and looped-together fresh irons. Ah, me!
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