The Rucksack

The list was quite specific and we had very little of what was on it: waterproof trousers, enamel plate and mug, sleeping bag, groundsheet, lightweight rucksack. We weren’t a camping kind of family. My friend up the road didn’t have any of this stuff either but her parents piled into the car and waved a credit card around Millets and suddenly, there she was, surrounded by lightweight, waterproof and largely nylon kit.

This was not the way of my people. Mum rummaged in the sale section of the local haberdashery and came home with enough summer-sky blue anti bed-wetting sheeting and a length of knicker elastic to make me some waterproof trousers. We found a plastic plate and a mug in a charity shop and we borrowed a sleeping bag from my more adventurous cousin. My groundsheet, weirdly, but unsurprisingly to me, matched my waterproof trousers. There only remained the problem of how to transport all this stuff as I had no rucksack.

It turned out that our neighbour had something. We all called him Grandad even though he was not related at all, and Grandad had a kit bag. It was almost a rucksack, and mum pounced on it gleefully. It was not lightweight, being made of leather rather than nylon, and had big brass buckles, but would have to do. It weighed a bloody ton on my shoulder, even before I’d stuffed it with, stuff. Grandad told me it was lucky but it didn’t seem very lucky, being rather ratty and scuffed with a hole on one side and therefore not even waterproof. I couldn’t even comfortably use it as a pillow on my first night camping because it was so rigid with age and gave me a neck ache. Did the other girls make fun of me? Probably, but I don’t really remember anything specific now. I do remember feeling somehow ‘other’ for the first time though - the only one with second-hand everything, home made or borrowed the rest. I don’t imagine that I was very grateful for the effort that my family and neighbours had put into providing me with all these items. But I do remember asking Grandad why he thought the bag had been lucky when I returned it to him later. He put his finger in the hole on the side and just said one word: “Bullet”.