GORDON Blackwell contacted the Echo after seeing the picture of children playing with a giant shoe-house printed on October 25.

The picture was taken by an Echo photographer in a playing field at Upton School and shows the first shoe-house, and only white one, Gordon made.

Two large adults could sit in the toe part. It was earlier exhibited at Poole Park.

He made about seven shoe-houses and sold them to people locally.

The other shoe-houses he made were mainly painted yellow and had a red roof and blue bottom.

Some had a window in the toe section and a ladder to climb over the roof with a slide to get down on the other side.

A few had kitchens put in as well as sleeping quarters in the roof. The shoe-houses were fun and very popular.

At the time Gordon was also doing boat repairs in fibre glass at his Sturminster Marshall workshop.

His other creations included a penny farthing cycle on the roof of his bungalow ‘Ramblers Roost’, a parrot wind vane which he later sold to Merley Bird Gardens and a large realistic mouse trap, big enough to trap a dog, made from silver-painted hosepipe for the spring and a chunk of foam rubber as the Gloucester cheese.

His mobile coloured tortoises on castors were also popular with the children.

Gordon later sold the mould he used to make the shoe-houses. He thinks one of the shoe-houses is still in use at Sturminster Marshall, minus its door, and another one is on a farm near the start of a railway line in Somerset.

Contact Echoes if you know where the shoe-houses are today.