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This story was submitted to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by Wymondham Learning Centre on behalf of the author who fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

My father owned a shoe shop in the town of Wymondham and we lived above the shop.
A regular called at my dad’s shop was the caretaker of the Baptist Church and he would take all our rubbish away to use in order to heat the hot water system in the church.

The area around where I lived had many American air-bases. They were frequent callers at my dad’s shop. The materials my father used during World War Two were of inferior quality because this was all that was available to him. On one occasion two Americans had some repairs done on their shoes. I remember one of them being very tall and the other one short. A little while later the tall one came to collect his repairs and told my father that the short man had been shot down and so unfortunately would not be collecting his shoes. My father was so impressed with the quality of the American’s shoes that he took the bottoms off the shoes and put new welts and soles on them and used them himself. Afterwards they were handed down to me.

On another occasion an Irish gentleman came into the shop to purchase shoes. However, he had no coupons for the shoes but said he was willing to pay more money. My dad said that couldn’t be done and he would lose his job if he sold him shoes without the coupons. With that a local detective came into the shop and my dad said to him, ‘Hello Guv’. With that the Irish man quickly left the shop. My dad commented to the detective, ‘You couldn’t have come at a better time.’

The number of coupons needed to buy shoes was seven for ladies and nine for gents, and shoes came out of the clothing ration. Rubber was very short and you could only get wellington boots if you were doing essential work. To get rubber boots you had to apply to the Board of Trade for a permit and then you could obtain wellingtons from any shoe shop with nine coupons and money.

Not only was leather rationed, but petrol too. It was illegal to use petrol for pleasure. A leather representative used to come and visit the butcher socially, opposite where I lived. However, he needed the petrol to get there from his home, so he used to cover himself by saying he was calling to see Mr. Proctor (my dad) to take orders for leather.

When my dad heard this he asked for something in return for using him as an excuse to visit the butcher. For this my dad was given leather every so often by the representative.

A farmer, who was a friend, used to call at the shop with a box with three to four pounds of butter inside. My dad, who was a special police constable at this time, regularly had policemen calling at the shop. On one occasion when the farmer called with the box he was shocked to see a sergeant chatting to my father so he put the box down and said to my dad, ‘Arthur, the shoes are not big enough, I want them half a size bigger. I’ll call back later.’ The sergeant commented to my dad, ‘You’re a rum bugger Proctor. I don’t believe they‘re shoes in that box’. As father was associated with police he told the sergeant ‘I dare do what a lot of people wouldn’t do.’ With that he took the lid off the box. On seeing the butter the sergeant put his hand in his pocket to reach for some money to buy some of the butter.

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