May I try the neighbour?

Why is it that people ask for the 'neighbour' to a shoe when they want to try the other one on? Or it just a Scottish thing?

Today we managed the whole school shoe buying excursion in around 2 hours. That would be 10 minutes for two pairs of shoes for my son (who bought another pair just the same as the last ones), and the balance being my daughter trying on 12 or so different pairs.

This is a REAL RESULT. One year she tried on 37 pairs before we found one pair which were deemed suitable, but which time I honestly thought I'd lost the will to live. We had to bake cookies and take them to the shoe shop owner who had the most patience and supplied at least half of the samples to try.