People have been wearing wooden footwear for centuries.
In English, the name for this kind of shoe or boot is a clog and various versions are found across the world. Many people associate clogs with the Netherlands, which has the oldest examples in Europe, with some dating back to 1230 AD. They were in use in the UK too by much of the working-class population, especially by northern miners and farmers, until the 1920s.
Do clogs exist in this region? Well, yes. Perhaps the most famous are the geta and okobo clogs from Japan (now sold as fashion items) but you can also find tai-ping (China), bakiak (Indonesia), namaskin (Korea), terompah (Malaysia) and bakya (Philippines). There is even a clog producing village in China, called Baimi Wooden Clog Village.
Shoes made entirely from one piece wood, like the Dutch klomp, are still in use and are often snazzily decorated and sold as fashion items but in northern England, where I come from, and in Wales, clogs were basically wooden soles with iron or rubber added for durability and leather uppers. They were perfect for step dancing (think of English Morris dancing or Irish dancing to jigs and reels) and in the 1800s dances created by miners and factory workers began to gain popularity as locals gathered informally in pubs and living rooms to entertain themselves. This became known as clog dancing and when it was taken to the USA, especially in the Appalachians, it was adapted and called clogging. Later, clog dancing from England and Ireland would be combined with African rhythms to produce tap dancing.
In the coalfields and factory sites of Wales and northern England in the 1800s, local clog dancers would compete with each other and competitions were hugely popular (as was gambling). Both sexes danced wearing the colours of their troupe and breeches so that people could see their foot movements. Eventually, clog dancing became a standard act at music halls and variety shows. For instance, Charlie Chaplin started out as a clog dancer in music halls with a group known as The Eight Lancashire Lads.
English clog dancing probably developed in the cotton mills of Lancashire in the 18th-century and was used to protect feet from wet floors (needed to maintain high humidity for the weaving). They danced to adapted English folk tunes and Morris dancing. In recent years, clog dancing has been revived by enthusiastic cloggers in northern towns and cities.
Welsh clog dancing, however, is different. It is an unbroken tradition that developed from slate farmers and workers in slate quarries. They would challenge each other during breaks, using new tricks and steps to outwit their opponents and impress their co-workers. Over the centuries, Welsh clog dancing has constantly reinvented itself at local and national eisteddfod festivals and these days you have to be pretty good to compete at the National Eisteddfod Male Welsh Clog Dancing Competition.
Wales is well-known for the beauty of its choral singing and a few folks know of the Welsh harp. However, few people outside Wales even know of their clog dancing traditions. My family lives in North Wales and I've been going there for years but until recently I was unaware of this venerable tradition. Professor Mick Moloney, Bangkok's resident Irish/Celtic music expert alerted me to Welsh clog dancing. He also introduced me to an amazing Welsh traditional music band, Calan, which is described by Folk Wales as "a storming juggernaut of cool-Cymru-with-attitude power-folk with a jaw-dropping repertoire". Moloney rates the band, which has been going strong for over a decade, as one of the best bands playing Celtic music today.
At the inaugural Wales Folk Awards in 2019, the band garnered the Best Band Award.
The clog dancer for Calan is accordionist Bethan Rhiannon who was a former winner of the national clog dancing title; she was trained by her father, also a former champion clogger. She's backed by multi-instrumentalist Patrick Rimes who lays out the bass rhythm by stamping his clogs on a metal sheet.
The band have been taking their music, sung in both Welsh and English, to all corners of the world -- they appeared at the Borneo-based Rainforest World Music Festival and toured extensively.
The band's most recent album, their fifth, Kistvaen (Silencio Records) came out last year. It includes some stirring songs like Iron Town, a foot-tapping song that retells the Chartist uprising when workers in South Wales (the industrial heartland of Wales) faced gunfire to secure their right to vote, and there are some delightful Welsh folk tunes like Peth Mawr Ydi Cariad. Highly recommended. Also worth checking out is their 2018 release Deg I 10 (Sain) which features some of their most popular tunes since they formed in 2006.
Finally, you may be surprised to know that clogs helped create the English word sabotage. The word relates to labour disputes in France. The English word comes from the French saboteur, meaning wreck or sabotage. Workers would disrupt production, say of weaving looms, by throwing their sabots or clogs into the machinery. It was one of the first go-slow industrial actions taken by workers and was used as a negotiating tool.
Playing football with my schoolmates way back in the 1960s, when a defender had to hoof the ball away from the goal, we would say "give it some clog". All power to the humble wooden boot.
John Clewley can be contacted at clewley.john@gmail.com.
