Now that the left-over turkey has been consumed, the decorations are looking a bit last year, and the dyspepsia has rendered us regretful and peevish, let’s talk something basic: something fundamental, grounded, in touch with the very earth that bore us.
Let’s talk boots again.
Being here in Braidwood where men are manly, work is (sometimes) manual, and footwear practical, many of us chaps pull on a pair of stout boots of a morning, ready to take on the challenges of a day of hardy country pursuits. You’d think that as an effete city-dwelling office worker I’d have been in need of some new footwear when arriving here, but not so.
Back in the pre-naughties, children, before the world wide web was a gleam in Dr. Berners-Lee’s eye, we would pore over glossy magazines from far-away places, with their ads for exotic products we’d never seen in the flesh and couldn’t hope to own. One of these campaigns was for Camel cigarettes, which in themselves held little interest for us, but the image of machismo they associated themselves with was a figure we called ‘the Camel Man’.
This bloke would put Bear Grylls in the shade when it came to intrepidity. One week he’d be rafting down a jungly river, pausing to light a cheeky smoke; the next, resting up outside a canvas tent, pausing to ignite a swift blunt; the next, sitting astride a vintage Harley, pausing to spark a contemplative snout. In every ad, he was free, he was independent, he was capable and cool.
Everything about him was in shades of khaki and brown – and this is where the boots came in. As teenagers, we identified strongly with him: sure, we had no moustaches, but did we not fling a leg over an 80cc Yamaha and go camping in the nearby national park? Did we not whittle sticks with our penknives and cook sausages over an open fire? And most of all, did we not don khaki every day to go to school? So we chose the local veldskoens (or vellies or ‘desert boots’ as they were also known) as our footwear for fossicking about in the bush and riding our mighty Yamahas in search of adventure.
Such was the lasting allure of the Camel Man that I, for one, continued to seek the more rugged, outdoor-styled brands of clothing – and that included boots with beefy Vibram soles and rows of eyelets to lace them up tightly. As a student I picked up a cheap pair of local manufacture which sported bright red laces and satisfyingly-treaded soles. These accompanied me to the UK, where, on my first solo hike in the Dartmoor National Park near the pub where I was employed, they revealed themselves to be slightly more porous than blotting paper. They weren’t used much after that.
Next up, once London’s magnetic power had pulled me in, and in sympathy with a girl I rather liked it had to be Doc Martens, with all their associations of punk, skinheads and gritty urban existence. The classic bovver boot could not be further from the Camel Man’s sartorial style, but was just right for the urban jungles of Hackney, Bethnal Green and Stoke Newington. After they were worn in, that is: an agonising process but worth it for the decade’s service the boots rendered thereafter.
When those black bovvers finally gave up the ghost, the boot of choice was the classic Caterpillar, which served just as well through many a winter before they were confined to the shoe cupboard in Singapore, where they languished for a decade unused. On one trip to the UK, inclement weather forced the purchase of a pair of low-topped Timberlands which also went into hibernation once home in Singapore again. And likewise with a pair of their robust and comfy boat shoes.
So on arrival in Braidwood, you’d think I’d have had the perfect Camel Man options for footwear. I certainly thought so – until donning them to pace the Corner Cottage estate in the depths of winter. But ten years in Singapore’s humidity will do things to a boot. This is what happened to them when a foot was inserted with intent.
Apparently that butch-looking stitching around the sole is purely for show – it does nothing. So it’s back to the tools again for a go with strong epoxy and stronger clamps. Yes, these will probably leave little oblong indentations in the toes, but it’s better than shelling out for new ones, don’t you think?
If this doesn’t work, it’ll have to be one of those stout Aussie brands like Blundstones or Redbacks or whatever (I think we’ve established that RM Williams’ classics aren’t an option). You can get all sorts of very practical tradie boots these days, with light, flexible uppers made of artificial fibres, and hard-wearing grippy soles, all ergonomic with no painful breaking-in period.
Thing is, I’m not sure the Camel Man would wear these – the look’s all wrong. Come to think of it, he was really all about form over function, that guy. Why else would he do all that cool outdoorsy stuff while smoking a stinky ciggie, after all?