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A while back, I bought a smart-looking pair of leather shoes from an outfit calling themselves Samuel Windsor. To this ‘pleb’, at least, they looked very up-market, hand-tooled shoes.
Only thing was, quite soon after they were bought and without warning, the soles began to flap (they’d come right away – the stitching had come apart), so that as I was walking along a kind of mall in a local hospital, without consideration of any other maybe persuasive evidence in support, I must have looked like a clown. I googled them and found I wasn’t the only one who had bought something I should have known was too good to be true…
Then, blow me down if I didn’t start receiving spams from them in my Inbox advertising more of their kit! I still can’t fathom how they are still in existence, and evidently able to spend a bomb on advertising in various national media. Just got another spam from them today for leather slippers.
An earlier spam from them allowed a reply, so I just left a very brief and polite message:
‘Fool me once, and it’s your fault….’
I’ve had their advertising thrust through letterbox and inbox too. A big and bold
caveat emptor
methinks. Forty quid for a pair of supposedly all-leather goodyear-welted shoes is far, far too good to be true
The chosen name of Samuel Windsor is enough for me to give them short shrift: a rather naff attempt at a reassuringly English name
Hand-tooled by underpaid 13 year old craftsmen out of sight out of mind far far away, I reckon
Stick with the adequately paid 50 year old craftsmen who’ve been cobbling away in Northamptonshire since time immemorial. You won’t be disappointed.
seems fundamentally a Welsh operation:
Yep. I should have realised it would be a product of a sweat-shop in the Far East. And to say, ‘If it looks to good to be true…’, is a truism is something of an under-statement. I must have been blinded by a flash of consumerist avarice!
But I had a relatively good pair of leather shoes, as high- street shoes go, and they lasted me for 20 years or more, and I think that must have persuaded me…. instead of the aforesaid adage.
I`ve had no trouble with this operation. Had shoes,sweaters, overcoat . In fact be sporting the coat to Kempton Boxing Day .
Sorry, to say, that’s no consolation to those of who got mugged by them, Roddy. When I Googled the outfit a while back, there seemed to be a forum dedicated to fellow-saps, whose H Samuel Windsor Ever Wrong soles had come adrift from their uppers.
Maybe they’ve become respectable now and deal in bona fide goods only. But it reminded me of a passage in a book by Tobias Wolfe, who had served as an officer in the American Special Services in Vietnam.
He said he saw a notice in the window of a tailor’s shop in Singapore (or Hong Kong), stating that they were purveyors of naval uniforms to Her Britannic Majesty’s Royal Navy. So he decided to go in and get measured up for a suit from them.
Well, when he got back to the US, and was at a dinner party, he found the stitching on his suit coming away. A fellow-guest remarked that it looked as if it had been made by a Chinaman! Although why the poor old, Chinese should have their name taken in vain like that I don’t really know, but it tickled me when I read it, though not as much as his own comment. He said he had a good mind to sit down and write a real scorcher to the First Lord of the Admiralty of Her Britannic Majesty’s Royal Navy.
Get on the blower to Watchdog, Grimes.
Ah, it was history, seemingly, when I Googled and found a forum for disgruntled saps like me, Nathan. Maybe one of them complained to Watchdog and now they’re on the straight and narrow, since they still seem to be thriving.
Like the Brittanic Majesty description. Wish I could use it for my brussells sprouts. Actually got a pair of the daisies on now ,very comfortable . However I would be sure its comments such as yours have brought them into line.
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