It’s not how he normally dresses but bank manager Paul Sprigens donned a pair of high heels for a charity event last Friday.

Paul, manager of Lloyds Bank in Chequer Street, St Albans, slipped on the stilettos to take part in Rennie Groovy Shoes Day which invited people to decorate and accessorise their shoes or simply wear their favourite pair.

It was the first Rennie Groovy Shoes Day and hailed a great success as schools, pubs, shops and businesses across the Rennie Grove Hospice Care area joined individuals to wear fancy footwear and donate £1 to help the hospice care for over 3,000 local patients every year who have been diagnosed with life-limiting illness and their families.

Community fundraising manager for Rennie Grove, Nicola MacKinnon, said: “We were delighted with the response from the local community. The idea really did seem to take off and we saw some fantastically creative ideas. I honestly never knew there was so much you could do with a pair of shoes!

“People posted their “footies” on our Facebook page and sent through other photos to us as well, so we’ve seen first-hand that feet were definitely a more fascinating thing than usual last Friday.”

She added: “We’d like to thank everyone who stepped up and got involved. We hope they had fun and we know that every penny of the money raised will make a big difference to lives of local patients and families. We are hoping that the day will raise in the region of £5,000 as well as spreading the word about the work that we do in the local community, making it possible for our patients to be cared for at home.”

Among a host of events in the St Albans district were Design a Shoe workshops for children at Bowmansgreen School in London Colney where pupils wore their groovy shoes and took part in welly wanging and a sponsored welly walk.

At BHS in St Albans, staff wore groovy shoes and the day was promoted in-store and at Grove House, the St Albans day hospice, patients wore groovy shoes, enjoyed a shoe-themed lunch menu and a special garden party with shoe-related activities.