Last updated 05:15, Friday, 31 October 2008

Two beautiful girls. One a pretty, slender blonde, the other a slim and bright eyed brunette. But – surprisingly – twins for all that.How times have changed. When I entered the sixth form for A-level study, I worked as a shampoo girl at a local hairdressing salon – £2 for Friday night, after school until 10pm; £4 for Saturday 8am to 5.30pm and if a new Beatles album was due for release I topped up with another pound, helping my fishmonger grandad with his skinning and filleting.

Such blessed girls. Just 16, each with gorgeous good looks, both graciously poised with the confidence of youth. Sharing their special bond while celebrating individuality... and fabulous shoes!

“Thanks, they’re my Gordon Brown shoes,” she said. “And the matching bag is a Gordon Brown bag.”

It’s never wise for a woman in the prime of her middle years to show dullard ignorance to a stylish teenager in red patent shoes. For a start they were high enough to make a middle-years woman fear the oxygen starvation effects of vertigo – and to be truthful they prompted unwelcome thoughts of imminent hip replacement. But they were lovely. The Lord said it was wrong to covet but even so...

This was probably what everyone had always meant by the term generation gap. Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik, Prada, Renata – even Hush Puppy – I’d heard of all those. But Gordon Brown shoes were new ones on me... an emerging thrusting young British designer perhaps?

Ah well, the girls had already seen my dumb and dumber expression; they’d tasted blood. Might as well leap into their shark-infested youth culture waters with a full-throttled belly-flop.

“Gordon Brown? Can’t say I’m familiar with him,” I owned up. “New designer?”

“Prime Minister,” she said. Her sister giggled.

“Oh, that Gordon Brown! But what does he have to do with shoes?”

“He bought them.”

Funny how the older you get the less you expect to know about the ways of the brave new world of 16-year-olds, their engagement with politics, shoe-buying prime ministers and the like. But even having said all that, this little fashion scenario was a total blank. Gordon Brown doesn’t do shoes – let alone Choos. He chews his tongue mid-sentence but that – or so I believed – was the closest he ever came to any understanding of the sainted Jimmy’s Sex and the City styling.

“He did?”

“Yes. He pays me £20 a week and a bonus of £100 twice a year.”

“For what?”

“Going to school.”

“And the bonuses?”

“For meeting my targets.”

“Which are?”

“One for turning up – you know, attendance.”

“And the other?”

“For not staying on Facebook too long, I think.”

“And you spend the money on shoes.”

“Yes and bags. But I always say thank you to Mr Brown.”

Such a well-mannered girl. Her twin sister too. She was still showing an enchanting smile, as she nodded agreement and chipped in that she also received a Gordon Brown salary for going to Carlisle College. She bought shoes as well – the last pair being spectacular creations in black and gold. Impossible to walk in, much too uncomfortable to wear but sensational to look at. And she looked at them a lot... so not a penny had been wasted.

It wasn’t that I begrudged the twins a penny of their payments, which were surely teaching them the fundamentals of busted budgets, the consumer economy and the importance of shopping only for fripperies – all vital to any woman’s stock of basic life-skills and a very necessary part of every girl’s education.

But having already bought a number of banks I never wanted and having paid the eye-watering wages of at least a couple of toe-rag, bullying BBC presenters with whom I wouldn’t pass the time of day, I was beginning – perhaps a little grumpily – to bristle at credit not being given were it was properly due.

Not the twins’ fault but since Gordon Brown wasn’t likely to raise the finer points of who buys what without being asked, I felt I should.

“It’s not actually his money, you know.”

“No?”

“Taxpayers buy your shoes. People who go to work. Never mind Gordon Brown – say thank you, Anne.”

“Oh, right. Of course. Thank you, Anne.”

“You’re very welcome,” I said. “If I have to buy shoes for anyone, I’d much prefer to buy them for beautiful young women with such impeccable good taste, than anyone else.”

And I meant it too. I surely wish the pair of them the very best they can glean from their continuing education. But I wish them a lot more from their shopping.