ABSTRACT
Ambling through a maze of narrow streets below the main square, I turned a corner and almost bumped into a long line of people. They were from all over the world and, in the hot August sun, they were lining up outside a shoemaker’s shop. It produced espadrilles, the traditional peasant footwear of the Pyrenees. This little shop had been making these shoes for five generations. But we were not in the Pyrenees. We were in Madrid, the sophisticated capital in the centre of Spain. This made no difference – the very longevity of the place, where things were done in the old-fashioned way, gave it a validity and a sense of the genuine.
