Boots—and More Boots

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 47, 5 June 1931, Page 8

Boots—and More Boots

We're foot-slog-slog-slogging over Africa! Foot foot foot foot slogging over Africa! (Boots boots boots boots Moving up- and down again!) There’s no discharge in war! T’S an ill wind that blows no one any good. Had the inimitable Rudyard Kipling any other thoughts than the obvious in his mind when he wrote the above? At all events, Mr. J. A. East, in his talk from 3YA on Friday, ascribes the demand for boots in the Boer and other wars of the period as the definite

cause of- the establishment’ of the machine-made boot. Like most other industries, the provision of boots and shoes,. the development of the business, the brains and industry which have gone into it during the last century make quite a romance. I am sure the speaker will take no offence when I say that his rugged voice and his faint dialect were, on this occasion, valuable assets to such a talk. For I harbour a deep feeling of awe for cobblers (and this talk was a veritable "Cobbler’s Song). They are always advanced in their views; most of them are excitingly radical and not a few. have gone even further than that! Does the contemplation of much shoe leather have anything to do with it? It may-I know that when I see a hole appearing in the sole of my shoes, or the heel adopting a dangerous angle, I have advanced views, too; most lurid in fact,