Hiking stores are now found all across the world, both on the high street and like ourselves online, but where did walkers get there kit from prior to the advent of the high street store. In general it was down to local shoemakers who developed new types of boots depending on there locality and then grew their business to become the boot suppliers of today: this is particularly true in the more mountainous areas of Europe.

In the UK this was also true to a certain extant, but ht growth of rambling in the 1920s and 1930s saw a gap in the market as many people simply wore the same boots they had for work. The end of the Second World War saw the creation of one company which saw me buy “hiking gear” for the first time back in the dim and distant past of my childhoold in the 1970s. This was the local Army & Navy store, that emporium of delights where you were never quite sure what you would find.

The company began as Uniproducts in 1947 and opened the first of its stores in the northwest of England, and quickly expanded to form was probably the first army surplus chain consisting of fourteen shops. Now based primarily online it concentrates on military surplus but there are still number of independent “army and stores” across the country, a lot of them family owned which have survived by adopting hiking equipment, general outdoor clothing and safety equipment. However, from checking  a couple of them out for research purposes they are a lot better organised than the local store I remember from my childhood.

Hiking stores today can supply modern kit, made from modern fabrics and technology which make walking and enjoying the great outdoors safer and more enjoyable but I don’t think it’s quite the same as that first trip to that dark and dingy store full of cardboard boxes and overflowing shelves.