Farmer's son Jonathan Woodall had his shoes mended at an Oxford bootmakers 50 years after they were crafted in the shop.

The goatskin shoes, which are worn for black tie occasions, were made for his father Kenneth Woodall, who ran Upper Westfield Farm, in Harwell, in November 1948 by Ducker and Son Ltd in Turl Street.

BBC TV Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman is also a customer at the shop.

He passed the size 11 and a half black lace-up shoes on to his son in 1965 when he had an accident which prevented him from using his left arm and had to wear slip-on shoes.

Mr Woodall Jnr, 52, who was the British bobsleigh team's number one driver in the 1980 Winter OIympics in the USA, said: "I have been wearing them for evening wear ever since. They have had a reasonable amount of use and this is the first time they have been resoled in 50 years. It says something about the quality of the making. "They are the most wonderful shoes I have ever worn. They are so comfortable, light and easy to wear. They are delightful and it must be said remarkably hard-wearing."

Mr Woodall, who now lives in Shropshire, held the record in 1975 for the Cresta run in St Moritz.

The shoes cost Mr Woodall Snr, who died in 1989 but whose 87-year-old widow Susan still lives at the farm, £7 2s 9d in 1948 and would now be worth between £900 and £1,000. It cost £120 for them to be resoled.

Stephen Purves, who runs the old-fashioned shop with his brother George after taking it over from their father, also George, said: "It's not a regular occurrence that we see shoes coming back like this but it still happens.

"A lot depends on how many pairs they had in the first place and Mr Woodall was in here all the time."

Mr Purves Snr started working in the shop under Edward Ducker when he was 15 and retired when he was 81 in 1989. Mr Ducker set it up in about 1898 after walking to Oxford from Norfolk with his tools in a bag.

The shop has served many famous people in its time including Jeremy Paxman, who bought a pair of chukka boots about four weeks ago, comic actor Rowan Atkinson and Sir Robin Day, cricket commentator Peter West and award-winning foreign correspondent Simon Winchester.

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