THE older I get the more I appreciate comfort. This has become apparent recently because I have taken to wearing slippers, having sworn that I would never be seen dead near a pair of carpet slippers.

But oh the joy of slipping into something large, unwieldy and terribly unglamorous. In fact someone remarked that it looked as if I was wearing a couple of dead squirrels on my feet.

I don't care, comfortable feet are one of the essentials of life. In fact that's one of the little words of wisdom I shall pass on to the unwilling ears of the younger generation. 'Look after your feet little ones, you will rue the day in later life if you don't when the word bunions appears in your vocabulary.'

This is, of course, coming from a generation which forced its feet into pointy toed shoes with high heels tipped with little metal bits and ended up with not just bunions but in-growing toenails as well.

Did we really cram our unwilling toes into longer and longer points and teeter around on bits of metal the size of a pin-head? Of course we did, and ruined many a floor in the process. Which reminds me, I once saw a notice in a restaurant which read 'no steeletto shoes on the parky floors please'.

These days I sensibly wear the size of shoe which fits me, instead of the one and a half sizes too small I used to. This was partly due to the fact that at one time shoe manufacturers considered that women's feet ought to stop at size seven, or at a push seven and a half. Trying to find anything bigger which wasn't brown, brogue and in the men's department was impossible.

I can remember coveting black patent pumps in a shoe shop and being told by the assistant they only made them up to size six and great big gallumping girls with huge feet like mine didn't deserve such delicate and sophisticated footwear. Well, she didn't actually say the latter bit, but her manner and tone implied it.

Someone told me a year or so ago that the reason why there is now a better choice shoe sizes is that so many transvestites have 'come out' in recent years and of necessity need bigger footwear that more are made. Well, Yippee for the sexual revolution, I say. If it takes a lorry driver in need of a pair of navy blue court shoes to change the minds of an entire manufacturing industry then that's fine by me.

Comfort comes in many forms, not just in shoes but in clothes. The person who invented the fleece should, in my mind, get a knighthood forthwith, or a damehood because it must be a woman who had something to do with producing material which is lightweight, warm, easy to wash, doesn't need ironing, lasts for years, dyes beautifully into a myriad of colours and is fairly cheap to buy. Wonderful material, I'm just waiting for them to make knickers in it then I'll be satisfied.

We British haven't yet got comfort really cracked though.

The one thing I really like about America is that everyone demands, and gets, comfort.

American houses are always comfortable; warm in winter cool in summer. We still build new houses without any form of heating in them,for goodness sake.

Do they really think we want to move into an icy cold house and wear overcoats to bed until we can afford central heating or equip ourselves with a range of portable heaters?

Many modern homes have no storage space whatsoever except for the back breaking understairs cupboard and an airing cupboard in one of the bedrooms because there isn't room in the minuscule cabinet which is laughingly called a 'family bathroom' and where cat swinging is a definite no no.

So everyone has to buy wardrobes and cupboards which limits the space even more or keep our personal possessions down to only that which fits in a shoe box and a couple of bin bags.

Car manufacturers are at last waking up to the fact that few people relish limbo dancing to get into their cars but airlines and bus companies are still way behind in the comfort stakes.

On the last bus journey I took the heating was on full blast at my feet and the air vent was stuck on cold above my head. Four hours of baked feet and hypothermia of the scalp did not make for a comfortable journey.

Airline seats are, of course, the worst of all. It's not so much 'come fly with us' as 'come sit bolt upright with us for four hours in a seat barely big enough for a toddler and try to get your little tray down far enough to balance you food on then sit with elbows glued to your sides so you don't knock the person on either side and end up with a numb bum and a crick in the neck'. And oh yes, I know they tell you to stretch your legs to avoid thrombosis but they should tell you not to do it in the aisle unless you want to be run over by a heavy metal trolley pushed by a harassed flight attendant trying to serve 234 meals all at once and still have time to flog the passengers, drinks, duty frees, pens shaped like aeroplanes and scratch cards (oh yes, I swear it, scratch cards).

My real grouse is with chair and sofa manufacturers who produce wonderful looking furniture which is excruciatingly uncomfortable.

Sit down on them and you end up with legs in the air like a stranded sheep because, frankly, they don't have enough stuffing.

If I'm going into slippers I want a comfortable armchair. I turn to America once again because there I found the ultimate in comfort, a chair which has been manufactured for generations and is really part of the heritage of the country.

It's called a Lazy Boy armchair and yes, it is being imported here now, in fact there's a shop in Plymouth which sells them. In the States I saw them in all shapes, sizes and materials but all of the same luxuriously comfortable design. A design which doesn't entail having to lose 18 inches off your hips or dieting so that you don't sink to ground level.

Some of you may be aiming for a toy boy in your dotage. I'll settle for a Lazy Boy and a pair of durable slippers thank you very much.