In Charente Maritime, at the beginning of the 60s (and up to 1965) the opening of the hunting season started with a mass for the hunters at 7.30 in the morning. As an altar boy at that time I only remember one particular hunter “in gear” : Fernand Jaulin, who was always in rubber boots at the mass.

       In the 70s - it was in 1972 – at the seminary of Herbais (Vendée) a professor had the task of cleaning out the ditches of a nearby house, destroyed in the Revolution. The professor in question, Camille D, was in bathing trunks and Baudou rubber boots.

       I went for training to a Cistercian abbey and the Master allocated a pair of boots to me : some Baudou Tabac like the rest of the community. When we went to gather the French beans all the monks that were present with the Abbot at the head, and myself, were all booted in “Baudou Tabac”.

       I am still in contact with a young priest, the chaplain of the students, who hunts water fowl and is then in rubber boots.

       About fifteen years ago, towards 1990, in a parish in Charente Maritime, a young father came to ask for the baptism of his child. He was in fatigues of which the inside sewing was unstitched up to the crotch and he was in… rubber waders…
It was in Bourcefranc.