Some people remember what they were doing the day Kennedy got shot, or when Elvis died, or some other iconic tragic newsworthy moment. I remember where I was the first time I heard about Welsh toes.
I was with my big sister Nay, in the back garden at my mum’s house when we were in our late twenties, when she recounted a tale of such horror that it has been burned on my brain ever since. Older sisters are good for explaining the icky stuff of life to you in gruesome but honest detail. Like when we were in junior school and she taught me what all the swear words scratched into the desks and toilet walls actually meant. Or when we were in high school and she told me what you were meant to do with a boy’s willy. Older sisters tell it like it is and don’t try to dress it up in a pretty story the way adults do to soften the blow (no pun intended). And this is how it was when she explained to me all about Steve’s toes.
Steve is my sister’s ex. He was Welsh. He still is Welsh, actually, as far as I know. Unless they’ve changed the rules on such things and it begins to fade away the further and longer you stray from Cardiff or wherever. And at the time of the story, they were both living together in Cheltenham, but would nip back to Wales now and then to visit Steve’s friends and family. It was during one of these trips that it happened. They were attending a large house party of one of Steve’s old mates. Drinks were plentiful and conversation was flowing. My sister loves a party and has no problem discussing the universe and all its glories with anyone she meets who is friendly. And somehow, I will never know the reason, the subject of Steve’s toes came up in conversation. My sister was laughing away, gleefully making a joke at the expense of her then-partner by telling everyone how weird his feet were. How he had the weirdest toes you ever saw. How the second toe on each foot was much longer than the big toe. What a freak he was.
But to her absolute horror, instead of looking shocked and repulsed at the description of this extended second toe with all the characteristics of a witch’s finger, the ENTIRE ROOM of people at the party simultaneously kicked off their shoes/sneakers/flipflops and said in unison ‘What? You mean….like THIS?!!!’ while waggling their gnarly pointy second toes at her.
And like that dreadful moment at the end of ‘Invasion of the Bodysnatchers’ when the evil soulless alien replacement for Donald Sutherland points and shrieks at possibly the last remaining normal person on Earth, my poor poor sister was at the centre of a room being pointed at in sinister accusatory fashion by dozens of what have come to be known in our family as ‘Welsh toes’. There is a good reason why the children’s rhyme says that the second piggy ‘stayed at home’. If your second toe looks like it lives in a different postcode to the rest of the set then it’s definitely worth keeping hidden. If you go bare foot, you might even consider some kind of ‘toe burkha’ to spare the feelings of the rest of the world.
I realise at this moment in time I have literally divided the internet into two camps. Half my readership will be going ‘Euuughhhh! Weirdy freakers! What’s wrong with their feet!!!!???’ And the other half will be staring down at their malformed abominations that are normally kept hidden in shoes (for good reason) saying ‘What the hell does she mean? My feet are like that. Do you mean other people’s second toes aren’t like mine? What kind of weird feet do they have?’
And I’ll tell you, dear reader, that if you fall into the latter half group and are mortally offended by learning you have Welsh toes and that nature got you all wrong in that department then please just think of me like an honorary big sister, wising you up to the brutal truth of the world (but don’t ever ask me to tell you what you’re meant to do with willies. At least not on the same day we’re discussing mutant feet).
When my sister told me about the room full of Welsh toes, pointing and wiggling at her in all their naked revoltingness, my eyes were as big as saucers. Just knowing there were that many of them out there. That although if we were lucky, the majority of them were confined to beyond the Welsh borders and we were safely in Kent at the time, that the reality was…they could be anywhere and everywhere (*shudder*).
There was only one thing to do with that mental image which was to try and stuff it away in some dark compartment in the depths of my brain reserved for trauma and episodes of Lassie, never to be thought of again.
And then a few years later I met him. André. Moon of my life. My sun and stars. I fell head over heels in love. Stomach curdling love that makes you ache night and day. I fell in love with his talent first, then his mind, then his eyes and smile. It was a very long courtship. I’m making excuses now, because the fact is by the time I saw him with his socks off it was too late to back out.
There they were. Two of them. Like a pair of micro-penises snuggled between Big toe and piggy number three. Long and thin and pink and EXTRA. Looking at me, smugly…taunting me with their very existence. I think I probably asked him if he was Welsh that day. But I tried not to draw too much attention to them. There can only be four natural reasons for the existence of such extended second toes :-
- For digging up termites to eat.
- For leaping at you, feet first to sever your jugular vein.
- For breaking through a sock to accuse you of something terrible.
- For placing witchy curses on people.
At that point, I wasn’t really sure what André used his second toes for, and I didn’t want to provoke them by asking. So I turned a blind eye until we were at the stage in our relationship where we felt comfortable ripping ten kinds of shit out of each other’s physical appearance, personality flaws and taste in music. Then it was no holds barred.
I think at first André was shocked that his sweet-natured, normally so loving and accepting girlfriend could so savagely reject a part of his body. In complete denial as to his obvious physical handicap he tried to research different toe configurations to assure himself that actually his toes were greatly superior to my toes. And to my amazement he did actually come up with some interesting information. Welsh toes were actually ‘Celtic toes’ or possibly even Greek toes depending on exact layout, and my neat, organised, orderly and far more aesthetically pleasing toes were known as Roman toes. And we had each inherited this arrangement of wee piggies from our distant ancestors. He insisted that my toes were considered far less beautiful and to prove his point he insisted that all statues from the ancient Greek era and the Renaissance as well had ‘Welsh toes’ and even the stunning Statue of Liberty had them, to seal their reputation as the most worthy ensemble of toeage.
‘Bollocks!’ was my simple reply. ‘They are a genetic disadvantage. You’d never be a ballerina for starters. You couldn’t possibly tuck that thing into point shoes and stand on them.’
‘Rubbish!’ André responded. ‘If it was good enough for the Greeks…’
‘Nonsense!’ I would shout. ‘In sandals they’d have been constantly stubbing those toes on pebbles and things as they hung over the front end of the sandal all vulnerable.’
‘Fake news!’ Andre would have cried, had the phrase been invented back then. But he’d have been wrong. As demonstrated by our friend Ali, as shown in the photos below what happens to that excessive and therefore vulnerable toe as it hangs out further than its brothers and sisters – risking its very existence like someone sticking their head out of a train window and wondering why they get bashed to buggery.
When André ran the London marathon this April, the toenails on his witchety Welsh toes were the first to go manky and fall off. And believe me, that isn’t a sight that’s easily burned from anyone’s brain. But if you want a mental image just think….deformed baby rats/squid penises.
And so the argument has continued for years. Which are the most genetically superior toes? Here’s a section of an emailed conversation from the early years of our courtship. Forget poetry and sentiment…this is true love, people.
Andre: Actually. . . it’s called Morton’s Toe.
CJ: I love the way you launch into that, like you’ve known all along –
like a toe expert – rather than someone who googled toes.
Andre: Derived from American orthopaedic surgeon Dudley Joy Morton (1884-1960), who originally described it as part of Morton’s triad (a.k.a Morton’s syndrome or Morton’s foot syndrome)
CJ: A ‘syndrome’ eh? So…like…a defect then? >;o)
I think the following things from your letter are key:-
‘It has a long association with disputed anthropological and ethnic
interpretations. Morton called it Metatarsus atavicus, considering it an
atavism recalling prehuman grasping toes’. So…. you have APE FEET then? A throwback to the days when pre-humans could only communicate in grunts and by pointing their witchy fingerish toes at each other in an accusatory ‘you pinched my monkeynuts you bastard’ type fashion? I see.
Andre: The French call it pied ancestral or pied de Néanderthal, believing it to be a sign of intelligence.
CJ: So ‘Neanderthal foot’? Caveman foot? As a sign of intelligence? That
doesn’t make much sense…unless the French consider eating mammoth turds a sign of intelligence.
Andre: So there you go. . .it’s not just cool to be different, it’s historically
important! I’ve never felt so proud of my ET pointy finger second toe! :o)
CJ: You SHOULD be proud. You’re very special and your toes are very
‘special’. Seriously, I’m being mean, but you know I mean it lovingly. I do think
my Roman feet are lovely, neat and more practical. But having said
that, I can’t pick up monkey nuts with my toes or place a curse with
them or scratch out a termite mound for juicy tidbits and snacks, so I will
always admire your special abilities and virtues.
We’ve even come to learn over time that there are other configurations of toe too! (And seriously, if any of you have feet like the one with red nail varnish below then you might want to question whether your parents were actually brother and sister).
So, in summary, and to round off this blog post of horrors with something a bit more fun – if you want to know more about your genetic roots then maybe instead of forking out a small fortune to Ancestry.com like I did, you could simply slip your socks off and face your demons by checking out this old meme:-
Disclaimer:- The author of this blog was writing this under the influence of a witchy-toe-curse which makes it impossible to hide the truth. Please don’t seek me out with more curses or go for my jugular if you see me passing in the street. It’s not my fault you’ve got fucked up trotters.
I’m so glad I’m normal.