The Tale of Clamerkin Clog

At first it seemed there was nothing remarkable about the clogs. I wore em about the house from time to time because I enjoyed the clop they made on the stone floor of the kitchen.

I found em stuffed inside an old sofa that somebody had left by the roadside. When I chanced upon the ragged thing I sat down to rest. It was terrible uncomfortable. A closer investigation led me to the discovery that would change my life forever. 

They didn’t look like much; just simple wooden clogs. 

How strange! I thought. I popped one in each of my coat pockets and trundled off for home. 

Now, up until this point I had been a farmhand. Nothin glamorous about my life. I worked with the animals and the mud from sunup to sundown, barely scrapin a livin. 

It wasn’t until after the harvest when Farmer Rowley had a big old barn dance that they showed their true colours, as it were. 

Onion Rex and his band struck up a lively jig and all of a sudden I found myself on the stage with em, tap dancin the likes of which you’ve never seen! The crowd fell silent and the band stopped playin their instruments but I went on tappin like my feet were filled with fireflies. 

And every one of em thought I’d been keeping this great talent a secret all these years. But it weren’t my talent nor my feet nor the beer neither - it were the clogs!

Aunt Judy said I had no right stayin in this ere village with a talent grand as that. London, she said, get yerself to London. Well, I was only a nipper at the time and hadn’t done much travellin beyond where my Sunday walks would take me. But Aunt Judy insisted it was best. She bought my coach ticket for me and handed me a card signed by all the village wishin me all the best and don’t forget about us and so on. Inside, lay a wodge of notes.

London was like nothin I could have imagined! Not a drop of mud in sight and no animals to speak of. Just buildings and people and more buildings and more people. Hurt yer head and eyes and neck with all the lookin.

Without skippin a beat I made some enquiries and got to find out where there was dancin. Turns out Soho was the place. Sounded like an odd piece of farmin apparatus to me. 

Soho was a mighty strange place full of mighty strange folk but a right colourful lark, it was.

A sign there caught my eye: 

DANCE OFF, El Camino’s Club, 8 till late

So I went dressed up to the nines with my clogs on and everybody started laughin at me the minute I tottered on stage. Apparently people didn’t dance in clogs. 

But I had the last laugh. 

I wiped the floor with the lot of em, even beatin Tippy Tapper, erstwhile king of the soho tap scene. I was doing things that defied the laws of physics and Tippy couldn’t hack it. He hung up his shoes after that night. Never tapped again. 

In no time at all, I was appearin on the biggest stages - the Royal Albert Hall, Wembley, I even tapped on the roof of the Houses of Parliament! 

The TV shows wanted me, film directors wanted me, the whole world wanted me. I had hit the ‘big time’ as Aunt Judy liked to say. 

And the money kept pourin in. I had more money than sense. I was young and famous and I was the only person in the world who could tap dance in a pair of clogs with all the grace of a glidin goose.

Then one evenin as I was backstage about to step onto the floor of another hit west end show, I open up my special clog box and they were gone! The strangest thing was I hadn’t let the box out of my sight!

I started shudderin uncontrollably. The audience were chanting my name over and over, waitin for me to do my thing.

The bloke in charge didn’t care about my clogs and, thrusting a random pair into my hands, he pushes me out onto the stage. 

I was a lamb to the slaughter. 

The music flared up and I started tappin. Except the tappin was more of a drip and I was hobblin about like I had breeze blocks for feet. The audience fell into a stunned silence. Then someone laughed and pretty soon the whole lot of em were fallin over themselves laughin!

Overnight, I became the world’s most celebrated loser. I couldn’t even walk down the street without someone havin a dig. 

I left the city behind me and headed for the quiet of the country. I didn’t dare go back home to my village; the shame was too great.

In time, the reporters stopped houndin me and I became yesterday’s news. I was a fraud and a fool. I cut myself off from everyone, even my Aunt Judy who had always stood by me. 

The years passed and I travelled around a lot, sort of blowin in the wind. The money was all gone and nothin seemed to break the spell of misery. 

I suppose my life would have gone on like this indefinitely had I not received a mysterious parcel. Inside was a note, unsigned, but I could tell from the handwritin that it was my Aunt Judy. The words it contained are too precious to me to share. 

I was astonished to find the parcel contained a pair of wooden clogs identical to the ones I’d lost.

You cannot imagine the mix of feelings that rushed over me as I held them - joy, pain, excitement, fear, all swimmin together.

For a long time, I couldn’t put them on. But at night, lyin in my bed, I would remember the feeling of freedom and power they gave me, the sense of mastery.

Well at last I decided that I had nothin to lose, that the clogs were a gift that had come back to me - for a reason. In this way I came to allow myself to put them on. They felt snug on my feet just as I remembered them.

In my rush of excitement, I left straight for London determined to redeem my name and my pride. 

Arrivin in Soho, I went back to where it all began: El Camino’s Club. The place had changed but it was still at the beatin heart of the London dance scene.

Nobody recognised me as Clamerkin Clog, the once famous tap dancer. By this time I was bearded and bedraggled. My name, which I gave as Derek Mulvey, was added to the show list and I went backstage to run through my old warm-up routine. 

Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe they weren’t the same pair, that maybe they weren’t magic. I started breathin rapidly, quick short breaths, thinking that I was about to humiliate myself all over again. 

“Mulvey!” someone shouted, “You’re up!” 

I was on the verge of runnin out the door when I decided to look over the clogs once more. And there on the side of the left clog was the little darkened patch of wood that told me they were indeed my magic clogs.

Reassured, I slipped them on and ventured out onto the brightly lit stage. Someone shouted from the crowd, “It’s the ghost of Clamerkin Clog back from the dead!” 

This was met by a chorus of laughter. Little did the wisecrack know how true his words were.

The music started up and I just stood there rooted to the spot. Now the band was in full swing but still I hadn’t moved a muscle. The sea of eyes gleamed back at me expectantly. 

Then at last my right foot began to tap. And then my left. And then I was clippity clopping rat a tat tat. Jaws dropped as I danced with complete abandon, feelin as though all that pain and misery were pourin out of me with every tap. 

In all my years of dancin never had I attained such perfection as I did that night. And never had I felt so at one with my clogs. 

Soon after this, I returned home to my village. It was largely unchanged. Finally I felt that I could face all those friends and family. I had made up my mind that I would tell them everythin from beginnin to end - that I wasn’t really a dancer, that I had no talent, that I had just been lucky to find a pair of magic clogs and then kept it secret for my own gain...

But it was Aunt Judy I saw first off. I thanked her for sending me my clogs and began quizzin her as to how she had found em. She chuckled kindly and then sat me down to explain.

“We heard about what happened,” she said. “Everyone knew. And we all felt terrible for you, and sad that you wouldn’t come to us. I was hurt but I understood you was going through some things that had to be worked out in their own time. I waited and waited until eventually I got sick of waiting and I took an old photograph of your clogs and flew to Holland where I found the best clog maker I could to make you a new pair that were identical in every way.

“Thank the Lord you received them, Clamerkin; they cost me an arm and a leg!”