A letter from a reader

Every comfortable shoe I owned looked like it had been prescribed to me

I am 66 and my feet have got wider. Nobody warns you about that. They do not hurt and there is nothing wrong with them, they have simply spread a little across the joint the way most feet do eventually, and every pointed flat I own now presses in exactly there.

So my shoe rack had turned into two groups. Shoes that look right and that I can manage for about two hours. And shoes that are genuinely comfortable and that look, without wishing to be unkind about them, medical.

There was nothing in the middle, and I had started planning days around it. Which shoes for how long, and did I need to take the other pair.

These are from The Winslow Sisters, the small shop in Richmond that Emma and Alison have run for eleven years. They are called the Orchard.

What makes them work is the shape of the toe. It is squared off rather than pointed, so the widest part of the shoe is where the widest part of my foot actually is. That sounds obvious written down. It is apparently not obvious, because almost nothing else in my size does it.

I wore them for nine hours in London and took them off because I was going to bed, not because I wanted them off.

The other half of it is that they do not announce any of this. The leather is soft and takes a shine, there is a small gold emblem on the front, and the sole is thin enough that they read as a proper flat rather than something with support built into it. Nobody has asked me if my feet are all right, which is the compliment I was after.

They softened after about two days. The first afternoon they were firm across the top and I did wonder, and then the leather gave where my foot is and stopped giving anywhere else, which is what leather is supposed to do and what most shoes at this price no longer bother with.

The footbed is cushioned without being spongy. I have had the sort that feel wonderful in the shop and flatten by November. Six weeks in, these have not.

They were £42.95, down from £130, because they are clearing the run. There are five colours: black, brown, green, beige and red. Mine are the black and I have caught myself looking at the green.

One thing I want to say plainly before you order. They come in whole sizes only, from a 5 to a 12. There are no halves. I am usually a six and a half and I took the seven and it is right, but if you are a half size and you know you go down rather than up, that is worth thinking about first.

Emma has written her own piece about how they had them made and the six things she would not let the factory change. It is here if you like knowing that sort of thing.

If you have also been keeping two categories of shoe and planning your day around which one, this is the pair I would look at.