After liberty bodices...

I have two lasts as well, they make excellent doorstops. MaizieD Yours will be rusting away in the garden. If you don't want them give them to a folk museum or put them on Ebay.

Lasts? I''ve got two. One inherited from my father and the other from DP's father. They are in the garden as I've no room at all for them in the house!

I didn't know those metal heel things were called 'segs'; I think we just called them heel tips. Yes, we had them and Dad used to put stick on soles on our new shoes to make them last longer.

Modern shoes aren't worth repairing, they're too flimsy.

annsixty Do you think we should get out more?

Charleygirl, I'm from Fife, but can't remember them being called 'studs'.....but now you come to think of it, perhaps they were !
Whitewave, my mum used to cut the toes out of my Clarks sandals during the summer holidays, too, (and I was forever tripping up....)!

As the OP, Minimouse, watching The Last Detective last evening and the reminder of Blakeys segs was the reason I started this thread, so well spotted.

Labourers get "segs" on their hands too! Those hard lumps of skin.

I never knew they were called 'segs'
My DF used to fit them for me onto the heels of my shoes.
DM used to make me go and scrape my new shoes on the concrete to 'rough them up' and make them less slippery!

How weird - I was watching an episode of The Last Detective today and one of the clues left by the villain was a footprint with an imprint of a Blakey!

Yes, scoring was the term used - you could do it with the milled edge of a half-crown... The idea was to break up the smooth surface of the leather to avoid it being "slippy", or in English "slippery"!

Never had segs, but I was another who`s new shoes leather soles were scored with a sharp knife or scissors to stop them being slippy. All new shoes seemed to have leather soles, unlike nowadays.

And the kids on the corners of the streets with sparking clogs.
One of my favourites

I am sure that they were called studs in Fife-anybody remember?

Luxury grumpa we dreeeemed of 'aving feet.

....."Painted matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs"....Was that the one Galen? Yes it was very like that. I am talking about the 1940s (I was born in 1943).

It's all gone now of course and the remaining mills have been turned into apartments or light industry units. It's called progress.

gagagran made me think of the song about the artist Lowry

We called them blakeys. My dad also used to glue rubber soles onto the leather ones. I don't recall the scraping bit. These days I don't have shoes mended at all.

Gagagran you experienced history! That is so Elizabeth Gaskell!

We called them 'studs'. They put them on one pair of my shoes and that was the last they did it. Nothing like a bit of rebellion for sorting things out.

Woss all this abaht shoes? Dahn the East End we woz lucky to 'ave a couple of bits of wood to strap to our feet. And in a well 'ard faamly like the Mitchells in Eastenders the dads used to 'ammer the scrambleds (scrambled eggs: segs) into the kids' bare 'eels.

[That's the last time I try to type cockney on an iPad with predictive text.]

Lona I was born in a Yorkshire mill village and one of my very early memories is hearing the groups of men walking down the road past our house for the early shift at the mill. They all wore clogs and the clatter they made with the clog irons (much bigger than segs) was the sound that woke me up. In the dark days of winter you could see sparks from them as they went by.

My Grandad was a shoemaker, and so our shoes were repaired at home, with segs and leather, heels and soles. He also had several " lasts" the three legged tool . Wonder where they went? They would have made lovely door stops.

My dad never put the segs on our heels till they had worn down and he put them on the worn down bit to both level the heel and make them wear longer. He also put rubber soles on before the leather actually went into a hole. He had one of those last things with three feet to do it.

I remember segs too, although I don't think I ever had them on my shoes. I lived in a mill town where lots of people wore clogs and my mum was determined that I would never have to wear them. I think they put segs on on the clogs.

I was never allowed Blakeys - I wanted them for their spark-raising abilities - and for why says you? Because they were "common"...
We came from a street (nay, an 'Avenue') where the boys wore shoes. The less well-favoured kids wore ankle-boots (as did many older office-workers, so I can't really see where the 'common-ness' came in.)

I've never forgotten my father's astonished face when addressed as 'Mate' by a boot-wearing 8-year-old from my Junior School class!

I do remember having the bottom of my shoes scratched I suppose because of shiney leatheR also remember having the toes cut out of my summer sandals when my feet had grown. But don't remember Segs