I HAVE my reservations about the Keep K for Kendal' campaign. It was not until I moved to this part of the world some 30 years ago that I learned that the K of K Shoes stood for Kendal and I am pretty sure that 90 per cent of the population south of the Westmorland boundary are similarly unaware.

Of course, I had seen the K on the shoe boxes since I was a lad, but I always assumed that like D-type and E-type Jaguar cars it was just indicative that shoe models A to J were obsolete.

Overall it seems to me that it is all a load of old cobblers, as nobody seems to have made a fuss about the letters which have already been snatched from the town's name. Presumably it was at one time called Kent Dale before medieval name-robbers made off with the T and the E

Clarks can hardly snatch the K from Kendal and leave it denuded even further as Endal, but they have bought, and are unlikely to freely relinquish, the rights to the K shoes trademark.

To many of us it was patently obvious that Kendal's dedicated shoemakers would get the boot as soon as the well-heeled suits of Clarks stepped in to strip the assets.

Such is the way of many big businesses, valuable tradenames remain money-spinners, but once the bosses live somewhere else it is their bulging bank accounts which matter and the well-being of the loyal workforce who created the well-respected title is not worth a bent penny.

February 6, 2003 16:00