A Word In Your Ear with Roy Edmonds - Thursday, June 3, 2021

Even doom and gloom about the economy and virus variants is quietening down, as Britain gets back to work this week. Our local sports have picked up, too, with Blackpool again securing its place in the football Championship and Lancashire winning our first roses match in 21 years.

The bank-holiday weekend was a shorts-and-sandals affair and the weather looks like staying that way. What a pleasure, at last, seeing people sporting brighter summer clothes and smiles - rather than the grungy, ground-down look of that long, lacklustre lockdown.

With nowhere to go or visit for entertainment, dressing up went out of fashion. We’ve noted a gradual decline, not just recently, as suited men abandon ties for open shirts beneath their jackets, then adopt jeans instead of trousers.

Also there’s that dodgy style of brown, Italian-narrow shoes with their equally narrow blue jeans.

All black is considered smart in hospitality staff, while the ‘in’ colour for homes is grey – with black-leather seating. Hopefully, now sunshine and flowers abound, we’ll put both the grey and those clouds behind us and brighten up generally.

The most telling way to judge a man’s smartness, an old adage advised, was the state of his footwear. Perhaps this arose from military service or boarding schools. However, back in my humble childhood, it was reflected in regular polishing of our shoes or boots.

Nowadays that’s not so easy. Even the most posh stores have abandoned shoe polish. Waitrose stopped stocking such basics and, we recently discovered, our Booth’s supermarkets have done the same. All you can get, except in specialist shops, are those sponge cleaners which don’t shine long. Still, for now, that needn’t be a worry . . .

It’s sandals all the way, as far as I’m concerned.

* For Roy’s latest books visit royedmonds-blackpool.com.

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