chrisbell said:
Gairdner said:
Apparently the original company that mad Dr Marten's in England was NPS Solovair.
Not quite - Griggs bought the right to the Dr. Maertens (note the spelling) sole in 1959, after Maertens and his Luxembourg-born friend Dr. Herbert Funck sold it after they both wanted to explore other inventions, plus their medical careers. Bill Griggs toyed with calling the new line Dr. Funcks, but concluded that it could be misspelled as "Dr Fucks", so opted to use the name of the other Doctor, which he then Anglicised to "Martens" Solovair indeed still make the classic designs in Norhampton under licence from Griggs.
Chris, as always, I am indebted to your encyclopaedic knowledge and/or Google/Wiki fu. Scientific precision and I'm grateful for the education. Moral of the story: never take an eBay seller word as absolute.
Cheers!
Like Antdad, I too had the wearing of trainers as bad for your feet unless your actually doing sport, drummed into me from an ealry age. It was obviously an effective drumming as to this day, I just don't like wearing trainers at all. Not a snobbish thing in the slightest, just the way I am.
Any further forward Mr Stignot?