Real stories · The slipper with a quiet lift

I've been five foot two for sixty-seven years — these slippers are the first ones on my side

The slipper with a quiet lift — that's what these are. I'm 67, five foot two, and at home I've always padded about in flat slippers that do nothing for me in any direction. Top shelves are a family joke, my posture folds in on itself by teatime, and my feet feel every hour I've spent on the kitchen floor.

I didn't want heels in the house. I wanted a bit of help.

Then I found the Elevane from a British label called York Boutique — height-boost slippers, and I chose the soft pink, which is a far more cheering thing to step into than the grey pair they replaced.

The whole idea sits in the sole. The lift is built into a thick cushioned platform, which is why you get the extra height — and the standing-taller, shoulders-back feeling that comes with it — without anything that feels like a heel: no wobble, no forward tip, just a steady flat-feeling step. The cushioning underneath means the kitchen floor stops arriving through your feet by mid-afternoon, the sole is stable and grippy enough for indoors and the garden both, and they're slip-ons, so they go on and off without a hand or a bend.

The lift is built into the sole, so you get the extra height and the standing-taller feeling without heels, wobble or effort — and underneath it's all cushion.

They were £24.95 in the sale, half the usual £50 — and you can send them back within a fortnight with free delivery, so trying them cost nothing but curiosity.

Three weeks in: I reach the second shelf without the step-stool, my back reports that I stand straighter, and Malcolm claims he 'keeps losing me less'. He thinks he's funny. The slippers stay.

If you'd also like your house shoes to give something back for once, do have a look. The Elevane is rated 4.6 out of 5 by more than 180 women, it comes in pink, khaki and green — but only in sizes 3.5 to 7, and at half price the small sizes are the first to go.