A life in letters: Pedoscope

The pedoscope stood in the corner of the spacious shoe department in one of the Sauchiehall Street stores in Glasgow where I was taken as a child in the 1950s to be equipped with footwear.

The device, which I knew as the ‘foot X-ray machine’ was a stylish box made of highly-polished wood, several feet high. There was a low platform to support you as, having tried on a potentially-suitable pair of shoes, you put the front of your feet into a cavity. Someone pressed a button, and looking through the eye-piece at the top of the box, you could see your bones, and the stitching on the shoes, and wriggle your toes while your parents and the shop assistant who were also able to see assessed how well the shoe fitted.

But although the X-ray tube in the pedoscope was protected by a lead shield, there were concerns that the radiation it emitted could cause damage to bones, skin and bone-marrow – and the shop assistants were particularly vulnerable due to their high rate of exposure. My father was aware of the risks, and there was never any question of my feet being entrusted to the hazardous device. The old method of identifying where in the shoes your toes reached by pressing them with a finger had to suffice.

Apparently around 3000 pedoscopes had been installed in British stores by the 1950s, but they were withdrawn when the dangers they posed to health became incontrovertible.

It says something about my lack of a spirit of adventure and my willingness to conform that I simply accepted I would not see the bones in my feet through the pedoscope.