Dear Readers, when I broke my leg I was told that I should have ‘full mobility’ three months after the accident. Well, I am most likely being signed off by the Orthopaedic Department at the Whittington on Thursday, and I can certainly walk around, get on the tube and the bus and go up and down stairs if I’m careful and take my time. However, I still limp, and am walking at about half speed compared to my previous pace, so I would say that there’s a way to go before I’m back to my pre-accident levels. Nonetheless, today I decided that if I was going to need a walking stick for a while I was going to purchase a classy one, and so we headed to Central London for the first time in three months (the Angel doesn’t quite count). We had two aims: to visit the London Review of Books bookshop, because it’s my husband’s birthday in a few weeks, and to buy a walking stick at James Smith and Sons.

Photo by PLamacraft, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I love the LRB Bookshop! It is impossible to visit it without walking out with something exciting. Today, although I was meant to be shopping for John I also came out with David Spiegelhalter’s new book The Art of Uncertainty and How Migration Really Works by Hein de Haas, which was recommended by New Scientist no less. I have very few vices (with the possible exception of cake) but buying books seems to be one of them. Now, if I could arrange to live to about two hundred years old I might actually stand a chance of reading them all.

Having laden John down with my books and his ‘surprise’ birthday books which he chose himself and will hopefully have forgotten by the Big Day, we headed to James Smith and Sons. Better known as ‘that Umbrella Shop’, the shop itself has been around since 1830, with its current premises dating to 1865. I was tempted to pick up a Dagger Cane or a Sword Stick as advertised in the window, but in the end I settled for a very fine walking stick and a folding walking stick for travelling. The gentleman who served me checked that it was the right height – they saw a bit off of the bottom of the cane and fit a non-stick ferrule so that it’s in full working order. He also checked out a variety of folding canes – I’d been tempted to buy a fancy one online, but thank heavens i didn’t as it would have been too short. In the end I decided to go for utility over a pretty floral pattern.

The main walking stick is beechwood, with what’s known as a Derby handle, and it’s been ‘scorched’ to a dark red and ‘rattaned’ which means that it has a pattern on the lower bit. Just the thing for clearing a path through the crowds of Oxford Street!

And my folding stick is a black folding Derby, actually meant for ‘gentlemen’, but then I am nearly six feet tall so I need something substantial. I can pack this away in my rucksack if I’m catching a plane (which I hope to be doing in about six weeks) so it’s perfect.

I must say that the staff in the shop have the patience of saints. Lots of people seemed to be coming in just to take photographs or even film inside the Victorian interior. I think they were glad to just have an actual customer. And to be honest, the prices were not ridiculous – walking sticks started at about £30 and umbrellas start at £40, so although you can pick these up for much cheaper than this, these come with a lifetime guarantee. So if you’re looking for excellent service and something special for yourself, or as a gift, I would really recommend James Smith and Sons. If we don’t buy from unique shops like these, we’ll lose them.

James Smith and Sons – Interior (Photo by Edwardx, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)