Today we have a very curious pair of blue suede firefighter’s boots to look at:

These heavy duty boots seem to date form the seventies or eighties and have steel toe caps for protection. They were worn by members of fire crew in the RAF and are therefore presumably fireproof. In this period photograph they can clearly be seen being worn by an RAF firefighter during a lull in a training exercise:

The base of the boots have textured rubber soles for grip in slippery conditions, such as after fire supression foan has been sprayed:

At the back of each boot is a sturdy tab to help pull them on quickly:

These boots are a size 9, as indicated by the ink stamps on the interior of each boot:

Despite taking a size 9 boot myself, I found it impossible to get these boots on as the stiffness of the leather and the shape of the boot itself meant I could not get them on over my high instep!

These boots have long since been superceeded by more modern designs, but were presumably effective enough in their day and are an unusual addition to my Cold War RAF collection.