Early Inspiration

Before my family moved to Worcester, I spent six months in a secondary school in Somerset.

In this school, some assembly meetings were held in the gymnasium. The pupils were required in these meetings to remove their shoes to protect the shiny floor. The teachers, however, kept their shoes on. That is apart from one senior teacher who always removed her high heeled shoes in the gym and conducted the assemblies in her stocking feet.

I was quite surprised at the time by her removing her shoes. Although it was only in recent years that I have become dogmatic about this subject, the memory of her concern for that delicate wood floor stayed with me.