Last updated 13:26, Thursday, 19 June 2008

IT HAS never been an ambition of mine to stand in the ladies’ underwear department of a large MetroCentre store clutching a handbag, as happened recently (again).

I have a theory that whereas wives know that giving hubby their handbag to hold while trying on clothes is deeply embarrassing for him, they also recognise that it presents one more opportunity to demonstrate their psychological power over the male species.

What makes it worse is that I have no particular desire to linger in any shops, let alone in underwear departments where I have to skulk behind racks of bras for ages in case someone I know walks past.

Mrs Hextol loves browsing in shops, and when it comes to buying clothes I would put her in the category of a butterfly browser.

That is, she sets out without a definite idea of what to buy, then flits from department to department and shop to shop, only to return hours later to the very first venue to find the desired item gone!

It astonishes me, therefore, that Mrs Hextol has been able to amass enough clothes to fill two wardrobes and several chests of drawers, while I am restricted to part of a wardrobe.

I have not been a browser since schooldays, where the school tuck shop was one place where lingering was an absolute necessity, for with only sixpence a week pocket money one had to be extremely selective.

As pocket money increased, so tastes became more sophisticated, and the local chemist's shop became an unlikely favourite browsing spot.

There, we discovered the delights of liquorice root, which stained tongue, teeth and fingers brown, as though one had been smoking.

Schoolboys in those days dared not risk the wrath of parents by buying fags, even if these had been affordable.

However, the chemist’s was also a source of something called cinnamon sticks, which we purchased as a poor substitute:poor because they would not draw properly, and wouldn’t stay alight for more than a few seconds.

Much of our pocket money went on matches.

I often wonder what the chemist thought of these hordes of schoolboys buying peculiar items. We must have been good for business, because he would even sell us, without question, the teats from babies’ bottles which were put to use as passable mini-water-pistols.

Browsing days over, in subsequent years when most people were watching John Collier’s window, I was probably inside the store actually buying something.

I am a cavalier shopper. Having a good idea of what I need before venturing into a shop, I dash to find it – or, failing that, its nearest equivalent will do – make a beeline for the till and am gone.

I would be the first to admit this strategy has its pitfalls, for in order to spend as little time as possible shopping, I never try anything on.

This usually means I end up with trousers that are too long, and other garments that fit where they touch or don’t touch at all.

Many were the pristine items that were given away to friends before shops adopted a returns policy.

There is especially no point in trying on shoes. I am size seven-and-a-half, and as far as most shoe stores are concerned half-size persons don’t exist. So I have to buy size eights and stuff them with inner soles or wear lots of socks.

However, this is when I find comfort in recalling what the true dangers of browsing are – as forcibly demonstrated in a Newcastle store one day in 1980.

Seduced by a sign on a rack of coats which read “£10 only” I rashly lingered long enough to examine them all – and found a fashionable Crombie overcoat hiding amongst the rest.

What a bargain. I hastily grabbed it and rushed to the counter where the assistant wrapped it carefully and then declared: “That will be £60, sir."

“No”, I countered in some triumph. “I got it from that £10 rail.”

“Those are £10 upwards, sir. The Crombie is £60.”

As I slunk out of the store, red-faced and Crombieless, I glanced at the notice on the rack. I was correct in that it did say “£10 only” in large type. But immediately above this, in lettering obviously written by a gnat with the aid of a magnifying glass, was the minuscule word “From”.

So If you're a browser, be warned!