MY wife Maria came home from shopping in Huddersfield the other day and said: “I’ve got you a present.”

Which was unusual, but nice.

I mean, we are now at that age where the only person who gets a present in our house is the dog.

But a present for me? I hoped it wasn’t a bone.

It was something entirely different. It was a box that promised to increase my stature by two inches.

Pardon?

The box contained rubber heels to be slipped into your shoes so that vertically challenged people such as myself could attain a height that was almost average.

For a moment, I had doubts about the purpose of the gift. After all these years of marriage, did my wife suddenly think I was too short?

Perhaps I had shrunk with age? I’ve heard that people do that which is why I have started hanging off the beam in the garage by my feet to keep my body at full stretch. I can’t afford to shrink.

“Why did you buy me these?” I asked.

“Because I thought they were a laugh,” she said. “Something daft that you can write about.”

Well, there was that. My wife goes through newspapers and magazines for me, cutting out unusual stories or surveys that might make a piece in this column.

And trying out lifts in my shoes might be just the thing to brighten up the day.

After all, Manchester United had been beaten at Wembley and Town had missed out on promotion at Old Trafford so I needed something to smile about.

In days of yore, Hollywood stars such as Alan Ladd allegedly wore them because, at 5ft 6ins, he was shorter than his leading ladies. Tom Cruise, at 5ft 7ins, is said to wear shoes with an inbuilt height advantage all the time.