BOOTS (continued) Another story.

      Skye. Many many years ago. Three young men enjoying a spell of good weather and climbing a few famous routes on beautiful sun-warmed rock. (I swear it's true) But we were avoiding the really hard stuff until we met a funny little man. He asked us if we would climb with him for he had no companion and we went along more for a laugh than anything else. I mean, you only had to look at his feet. He was wearing one boot and one gymshoe. At the start of each climb he removed the boot and donned the other gymshoe to render himself symmetrical.
      "I found these gymshoes shoved under a rock in the Lake District," he said in a strong Mancunian accent, "as if someone didn't want me to find them."
      But why the boot? While his spanking new boots had dried by a fire, a wayward ember had fallen on one and burned it. So now he was wearing its partner until worn out before buying another pair. Gymshoes (courtesy of Lake District rocks and some unknown benefactor) were more easily and cheaply obtained. But the strangest thing was yet to come, for, contrary to all expectations (he being rotund and by no means the classical shape of a cragsman) he could climb like a lemur. He took us up several climbs which had, until then, been beyond our ambition. He said his name was "Don". That, and the accent, should have warned us. We were in the presence of mountaineer extraordinary - Don Whillans. A day or two later he went off in search of someone else who had a better chance of keeping up to his standard.
      What he left behind, however, was the memory of that footwear which Tartan Hen now has pride in offering to you. When ordering please state whether you require a right or left boot as these are produced in matching "inverse" pairs.