Beware of better-known imitations

From one of the first factories to make Doc Martens, these camouflage jungle boots have a genuine three-layer Solovair sole, oil fat and alkali resistant as well as being vegan, with a breathable water-resistant top. Of several midlands firms that used to make Goodyear Welted boots, with soles licensed from the Funk Maetens Patent & Trade Mark Association, this is one of the few still to make in the UK rather than China and probably the only one to to use the heat-sealed process. Obviously it's not the one that bought the famous trademark, but it's still the original & genuine Solovair with

• Goodyear string stitching
• Three layer self-moulding sole
• Oil fat and alkali resistant
• Sustaining a range of jobs, skills & supplies in a country with courts, votes and a welfare state
• It saves the jungle: "expansion of livestock production is a key factor in deforestation" according to Livestock's Long Shadow, a recent UN report: "the livestock sector emerges as one of the two or three most significant contributions to the most serious environmental problems at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution water shortage, water pollution and loss of bio-diversity".

Some other factory facts:

• Off cuts from the usual uppers are still collected and shipped to a board manufacturer, rather than go to waste.
• Off cuts from the soles are shipped-out to Zimbabwe for melting-down & making into another kind of shoe sole.
• Some of the factory tools date back to 1885; some of the moulds or lasts date back to the second world war.
• The firm that supplies camouflage upper material last stocked it in 1998; this batch of shoes is going to be sold on a large scale to justify getting more rolls made.
• The factory is looking for staff. The work is like a routine office job in its claustrophobia, but this is balanced by the satisfaction of making something real and sensible. There is a requirement to move from machine to machine and colleague to colleague, picking up far more inter-personal & craft skills than in plenty of offices: staff simply spot a bottleneck in the production line and go to help, allowing far smaller and more complicated orders than mass production "Nowadays we are getting young people choosing the work as a career It's a craft, and crafts are cool" - Hilary Freeman, owner of a different factory, Edward Green & Co quoted on Radio 4 12/07 After working in a shoe factory it's possible to study shoemaking at a college at Rossendale, north of Manchester, or at Leicester.
• DM or Solovair soles' first market in the 1940s and 1950s was mature women, who wore them for comfortable moulding to their feet in a way that girls fashion shoes tend not to do.

Made in 
  - Amnesty - Human Rights Watch - EthicalTradeorg#U - AZO - VOC - Jobs

UK          2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12
EU          34   35.5 36.7 38   39   40.5 42   43   44.2  45.5  47  
US male     3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10   11    12    13
US female   3½   4½   5½   6½   7½   8½   9½   10½  11½   12½   13½