Around The World With Wellies
They call them 'gumboots' in New Zealand and they are very helpful indeed when there is outdoor work, especially if it is wet. They are also referred to as Footrot Flats here. With a remix song by John Clarke about it becoming popular, somehow, it just added to the interest in these boots.
They also host a Gumboot day and have annual competitions, so strong is the spirit for this Boot.
Most Gumboots are black but the color selected is to suit the profession one is in. The butchers, abattoir workers, hospital staff are usually in white. Children love color and they can have a pick of their choice of the gumboot.
In areas of Southern Africa and Australia, the Wellington boot was also referred to as gumboots. During the apartheid movement, miners wore gumboots to protect their feet from infected water which accumulated at the base of the mines. It was difficult and expensive to drain the water and an easy solution to the problem was sorted out by the introduction of the gumboot. The music and sound created by the miners with the gumboots was soon translated into gumboot music, an addition to the traditional pop or also popularly known as gumboot zydeco. In Britain and the surrounding areas, this boot dance is called the Welly boot dance.
Blutcher Boot is also another less popular name for the Wellingtons. This term seems to be used only by a small percentage of the elderly in Australia. Blutcher was a colleague of the Duke of Wellington during the battle of Waterloo - the earliest immigrants to Australia would like to retain the connotation of this great battle by the Blutcher name, though the usage of this term seems to be fast fading.
In Ireland the Wellington boots are referred as top boots. Most elderly folks have an affinity for this boot. Ireland is another place where these boots are extremely popular. The Wellington boots are available almost everywhere.
In the early 1920s Russia had its first maiden introduction to these boots. They were not aware of these practical boots before this. The Russian weather conditions were bitter and harsh, so with the introduction of these boots, life of the civilians and the military became very much more comfortable. In the USSR, Stalin, then the state head, set up seventeen factories all over the country. Realizing the comfort these boots gave to the people, he got these factories to produce these boots for the common man and they became a must all over the Russian lands, as in spring and autumn the snow melted leaving the ground wet with puddles of water and slush. The leather boots were considered a luxury, giving a taste of capitalism to its users.
