This book is about an unusual journey: a unique journey through
everyday surroundings. Rob Walters decided to become a shoeshine
boy. He stowed his shoeshine kit, a tent, and a few items of
clothing in a trailer, connected the trailer to his push bike and
set off from Oxford to visit the old shoe-making cities of middle
England. Along the way he polished many shoes, met lots of
interesting people, pedalled many miles, and gained a fascinating
insight into his own country from a rather unique perspective.
Rejected by some, welcomed by many, he polished shoes in shopping
centres, solicitor's offices, a kite festival, railway stations,
campsites, street corners, and a bewildering selection of pubs. He
polished the shoes of dossers, company directors, criminals, Morris
dancers, publicans, bikers, policemen, schoolboys, reporters, a
bowling green groundsman, an Icelander, and a Latvian - to name
just a few. He slept in fields, in woods, and on the edge of golf
courses. He was ejected from the Norfolk Show and welcomed into the
offices of lawyers and fruit importers. During his journey he met
members of the Household Cavalry, topless protestors, a homeless
joss stick seller, a man who stole baths in hotels, a submariner, a
beaten housewife, a disenchanted solicitor, a rubber recycler, a
toyshop owner, and two ghost guides - amongst others. All of them
had a story to tell: some sad, some amusing. It is their tales and
Rob's own incisive observations that are related in this unusual
book. Reading it will transport you to Northampton, the centre of
the English shoe making tradition; then through the Fens to East
Anglia; back across the country to the Midlands; down along the
River Severn to Gloucester; and then over the Cotswolds to Oxford.
Progress is at a comfortable cycling pace along the country roads
and through the sleepy villages, yet interrupted regularly by
diversions into the vibrancy of the cities.
General
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