The Law of Odd Wellingtons

by Ian Sherry of Rostrevor, Northern Ireland

The rubber boot as we know it started in 1852 and is based on the Duke of Wellington’s self-designed hessian and leather riding wear. That’s the year Harah Hutchinson met Charles Goodyear – who had just invented vulcanization. Goodyear concentrated on tyres while Hutchinson bought the patent to manufacture footware. He subsequently moved to France and established his company ‘Aigle.’ I note a top of the range pair of their boots will set you back £300. However, Hutchinson wasn’t the first to work in this medium. The indigenous peoples of the Amazon traditionally plastered their feet with the latex oozing from the rubber trees. Then with great ingenuity they hovered their coated extremities over a fire and in so doing softened the compound and made for themselves rubber shoes.

Rubber boots were introduced to my townland in 1936. That’s when a returned Yank produced a pair of them (gum boots) from his portmanteau and sparked a frenzy of work. Every man in the country was beside himself to get a lend of them. A rota had to be established. Men for whom ‘if there was work in bed, would lie on the floor’ toiled from dawn to dusk in anywhere that was wet. Habitats lost – newts and frogs dispersed – due to the draining of sheughs and bogs.

By the 1950s and 60s wellingtons had really come into their own. That’s when working men wore them full time. Other than for going to church or chapel or indeed going to bed (but not always) we never took them off. Always and ever we wore them well turned down, only inspectors or their ilk visiting building sites or on farm inspections wore a full wellington and a suit. Women’s wellingtons fell strictly into two types. The young (in her 40s or 50s) land girl wore tight fitting up to the knee shiny black ones while the older woman favoured just to the ankle with lacerated tops. And while wellingtons may be essential country ware I draw your attention to a recent article by a prominent New York doctor who champions their wearing as a means of getting fit and losing weight when walking in the town.

This sojourn into the world of rubber boots begins with the purchase of a brand new pair of bargain wellingtons. Not a cheap pair, but a reduced in price, value for money (forgoing cushion soles and ornamental straps) quality pair.

And good as they were, with constant use, day in and day out, one boot developed a fault. It didn’t have to be ripped on barbed wire, or punctured with a nail (both could often happen), but it could be a tiny separation at the curved seal of the ankle, or between the uppers and the sole. And spurred by one very cold wet foot; another new pair was bought – not necessarily of the same brand.

So what to do with the old ones? Well nothing for a time, but eventually the damaged boot was discarded and the good boot kept. After all it may be this good boot’s very fellow that succumbs in the newly purchased pair.

And now we come to luck and the laws of chance and let us consider how many pairs of wellingtons would need to be purchased before one would have their very own pair of odd wellingtons. In time our own store of odd boots, from which we could choose a fairly well matched circa 2019 left one, and a right one, circa 2022. And never forgetting that other family members and indeed neighbours may be hoarding individual wellingtons that you had access to as well.

And now a further thought. What if one’s sister had married ‘into money’ and was a girl blessed with big feet; an advocate of recycling and bitterly critical of those who crank up business class air miles to lecture us on climate change. She could be making a statement at the marina, or indeed the hunt, with one of her £360.00 Le Chameau wellingtons on her left foot and one of your £19.99 bargain ones on her right. While you in your allotment would be attired much the same.

So as we see odd wellingtons can transcend gender, creed, time and class. They are environmentally friendly, can be from different continents and from myriad combinations. In essence, ‘The Law of Odd Wellingtons’ can encompass Darwin’s ‘Survival of the Fittest’ and ‘Let’s Work Together’ by Canned Heat.