FOOTWEAR FOCUS ROAD TEST
A recent incident on the Libyan coast F
oreign correspondents are thought to be at the very peak of their profession. They are bishops or brigadiers and their congregations or their troops are the readers or viewers who hang on their every word as they describe the horrors of war, the depredations of an earthquake or pluck sympathy from
their audience in the face of famine or pestilence. But among their number are charlatans. Those who slum it in some distant
capital milking their expenses to pay the bar bill at their headquarters - a hotel such as Intercontinental, Sheraton or Marriott. The bar doubles as an office where they regurgitate the contents of the city’s daily newspaper or television station in breathless tones to appear, as if in their own words in their own journals at home. When these veritable dogs of war are sent to a war zone they steer as far clear
of the front line as is humanly possible, collecting the first-hand accounts from their ill paid stringers. Despite this they don the working clobber of the foreign correspondent - the fatigue trousers, buff, canvas hunting vest with mesh back and multiple pockets and combat boots. They don’t buy the vests pre-sweat stained, but doubtless would if such a thing were available. It was amongst this breed I fell on a recent visit to Libya. It was a strange
assignment. The civil war to oust Gaddafi was still at its height with NATO air strikes still being conducted on his limited strongholds, but much of the country liberated and striving as quickly as possible to return to normality. I was dispatched by my editor to witness an effort to demonstrate normality;
the re-commissioning of a shoe factory on the invitation of the Misrata Business Council, a sort of sand encrusted chamber of commerce. The plane was full of foreign correspondents attired as I have described. I
was dressed fairly normally, but as a concession to the assignment I was wearing a pair of Clark’s Desert Trooper boots I had been given to road test. What better place and conditions to try out such footwear than in the desert itself: the original desert boot, designed by Nathan Clark in 1949, was inspired by footwear he saw being made in Cairo’s Old Bazaar. The boots rapidly became the footwear of choice for the off duty army officers serving in Egypt. Relaunched straight from the archives, Clark’s latest version, the Desert Trooper, takes the iconic Desert Boot silhouette and adds a rugged cleated sole, so very stylish.. On the plane the foreign correspondents were very cliquey and did not seem
to want to associate with me. When I left the plane I headed for one of the buses I felt they deliberately made the bus appear full and directed me to another bus. To my surprise my bus, that was filled with soberly dressed European gents swept past the heavily armed guards and the armoured vehicles protecting the airport. I was booked to stay in a hotel, but after travelling some distance, the bus pulled into a mansion on the esplanade overlooking the Mediterranean – obviously the former home of one of Gaddafi’s ruling elite. When we disembarked it began to dawn on me that these were not ordinary tourists (most sensible people don’t go on holiday to civil war torn countries). They turned out to be a European Peacekeeping delegation come to negotiate the departure of Qaddafi or his family. I tried to explain to my Libyan host that I was a journalist and that I was, “Here
for the opening of the boot factory.” “Yes, yes,” said my hosts, “Welcome, welcome Herr Boot.” The Libyans are very hospitable people even if they cannot understand you.
16 • FOOTWEAR TODAY • JANUARY 2012
Intrepid footwear reporter, Henry Harington, under fire in Libya, saved by his Desert Trooper boots! At breakfast the next morning I had absolutely no way of knowing how to get
to the factory I was supposed to witness being restarted and it turned out that “Herr Boot” was not in fact German, but a Belgian member of the delegation. He had missed the plane, an omission that did not seem to concern to the rest of the delegation. Indeed it was of equal unconcern that I had mistakenly joined their delegation. It was planned that they would travel to meet representatives of Qaddafi’s
family to initiate negotiations. There were no telephones, so no way of contacting my editor or the British consul (if he was still in the country) I felt I had little choice but to join them. We headed in a convoy of vehicles out along the coast road to the rendezvous with the blue Mediterranean twinkling in the sun. It was by glancing at the sun I realised that there were aeroplanes heading in our direction out of the sun. I was driving with the head of the delegation, a former colonel in the Swedish army. He immediately ordered the driver to stop and shouted “out, out, out!”
We fell out of the truck and ran to the water’s edge. Within seconds the lead vehicle had been hit by a rocket. It rose in flames from the road and bounced onto the Land Cruiser behind. In no time at all the convey was ablaze. And, standing on the beach with the morning sun warming our backs we felt the heat on our faces, as we watched our means of transport going up in smoke. You don’t hail a cab in the middle of a war or the middle of a desert.
The satellite phones that the delegation had to stay in touch with their governments and Qaddafi’s people were now charred technology. There was no choice. We had to start walking. We walked and the sun rose, as did
the temperature. It was not long before tempers in the delegation started to fray as they were all wearing city shoes to match their bureaucratic, pen pushing position back in Brussels. The more they complained, the more smug I felt. My desert boots were the height of comfort. Although the original desert boot was designed as a “recreational shoe” for off duty officers, the new version, crafted from English suede from the Charles F. Stead tannery in the north of England, was soft and flexible and felt “natural” and the crepe sole meant I felt close to the ground. I later discovered that the foreign correspondents who had sent me to Coventry
had got on the wrong bus at the airport – it was they who were supposed to have covered the supposed meeting of the European delegation and those planning an exit for Qaddafi from Libya. They had missed not only the excitement of being strafed by NATO bombers but of being part of a plot by the Qaddafi’s to get the European delegation and the press killed while by telling NATO our convey was Qaddafi himself trying to escape. With all their fatigues and combat boots the foreign correspondents had
missed the real action that I experienced and ended up being taken to Misrata where they were given the tour of a boot factory that was being re-established and served tea - a drink with which the hard bitten news hounds were mostly unfamiliar.
With apologies to Evelyn Waugh Ed: “Quite frankly, I don’t believe a word of it. Sounds like a lame excuse
for missing the main story – why, the shoe factory, of course! But, Henry did tell me that he found his Clark’s Desert Troopers exceedingly comfortable… and there was evidence of sand in his boots?
Details: Clark’s Originals Desert Trooper boots. Trade price: £33 - RRP: £79
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