If the shoe fits, X-ray it!
QUESTION Are my memories of X-ray machines for shoe fitting in the Fifties correct? The shoe-fitting fluoroscope — sold under the trade name Pedoscope — was made by the Pedoscope Company Ltd of St Albans, herts. It created X-ray images of a customer’s foot without the need to remove the new shoe.
The X-ray machine was stored at the bottom of a lead-lined oak box. To use it, you’d place your foot in the platform at the bottom while the shop assistant would view the X-ray on a fluorescent screen through the viewer at the top.
The length of X-ray exposure could be altered depending on age and gender. Across Britain, europe and the U.S., more than 15,000 Pedoscope machines were installed.
By the Fifties, concerns were being raised about the safety of X-rays. In 1957, the British Medical Journal reported a case of chronic dermatitis (a red, itch skin condition) in a shoe shop assistant exposed to ‘very large doses of X-rays’.
In 1958, the Medical Research Council called for a ban: ‘We hope that the use of X-rays in shoe-fitting will be abandoned except when prescribed for orthopaedic [relating to deformities of the bones and muscles of the feet] reasons.’
The home Office required Pedoscopes to display a safety notice: ‘Repeated exposure to X-rays may be harmful. It is unwise for customers to have more than 12 shoe-fitting exposures a year.’
With no official way to record who had their feet screened and when, this limit was never enforced.
The lack of regulation was a major factor in the decision to phase out the machines in the mid-Seventies.
Jeannie Murray, Inverness. FOR my brother and me, the highlight of a visit to Clarks shoe shop in Crewkerne, Somerset, during the Fifties was the use of the Pedoscope.
While the assistant was dealing with our mother, we boys would view each other’s feet and hands in the machine, marvelling at the bones. We would even put Mum’s handbag inside to see an X-ray of the contents. There were three buttons at the side to deliver different strengths of radiation and we often pressed all three at once!
Rick Taylor, Witney, Oxon. X-RAy machines, about the size of a large armchair, were a common sight in shoe shops in the early Fifties.
you climbed up the step, inserted your feet in the slot and looked through the viewer to see all the bones in your feet in detail. It was timed for a short dose.
There was no restriction on children just looking at their feet in them, and it was one of the treats of childhood.
Miss C. Morton, Hereford.
QUESTION Where did the saying ‘Going Dutch’ originate?
TheRe are a number of derogatory phrases such as Dutch widow (a prostitute), Dutch feast (a party at which the host gets drunk ahead of his guests) and Dutch reckoning (a non-itemised bill that seems irregularly high).
These were probably coined as a result of the long- standing enmity between england and holland. This was over everything from trade routes in the east Indies to North American colonisation in the 17th century.
Dutch courage (bravery fuelled by alcohol consumption) is thought to have a related origin.
It is widely assumed, therefore, that going Dutch, an informal agreement that each person will pay his own expenses, has the same origin, yet this does not seem to be the case.
It is thought to have come from the practices of the German ( Deutsch) expats living in the U.S. in the second half of the 19th century.
The first recorded use of the concept is ‘Dutch treat’ in an 1873 editorial in The Baltimore American.
It was suggested that drinking to excess could be curtailed if saloon owners insisted on a Dutch treat policy: ‘ A German in the Fatherland is constitutionally opposed to doing anything in a hurry, and especially to drinking beer with rapid speed.
‘The consequence is that we do not see men here with great, huge paunches as at home, capable of swallowing a keg of beer after supper.
‘They seldom treat one another, but sit down to the tables, and though they drink together, each man pays for what he consumes, whether it be beer or food.
‘ If our temperance friends could institute what is called the Dutch treat into our saloons, each man paying his own reckoning, it would be a long step toward reform in drinking to excess.’
P. T. Thomas, Cambridge.
QUESTION When was the first quiz night in a pub/club in Britain? Are they popular in other countries?
FURTheR to the earlier answer, which referred to the nationwide pub quiz competition founded by Sharon Burns and Tom Porter in 1976, we can beat that.
The Bridgend and District Quiz League began in 1973 when schoolmaster Jeff North approached eight local pubs and clubs in the area that were running individual quizzes and suggested starting a league.
Since those early days, our league has gone from strength to strength, and has two divisions and a knockout cup competition. From 1994, we became known as the Bridgend Recorder Quiz League and then later the Bridgend and Porthcawl Gem Quiz League in recognition of newspaper sponsorship.
Steve Kingscott, Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan.
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