Junior Reader is now the proud owner of a rucksack. Not a little, stick your toy cars in, rucksack. Nor even a larger, fit in a few plastic dinosaurs, type.
A proper rucksack – just a bit smaller than ones for adults. 30 litres, if you want to know, all with a good back support system, waist belt so it sits on the hips, and so on.
The rucksack comes through the generosity of my great aunt, a keen walker herself. Although she is not striding out ahead now (as often in the past), it seems appropriate that she is funding a rucksack, and with it, the potential for long walks.
So we started to talk to Junior Reader about rucksacks. Because, it turns out, get a reasonable one, and they will last. My red and green number (65 litres, two sections) is still going strong, 21 years on.
I remember a trip to Millet’s to get it. Others at school had done Duke of Edinburgh award, got all the hiking/camping kit; I didn’t. So it was my first proper rucksack, around the age of 19.
That rucksack was my main luggage for my first proper time abroad: my six months in Poland in my gap year. It went up on luggage racks, and squashed under seats. I’m sure it was used as a seat on numerous occasions.
When I finally made my way home – from the far north east of Poland (Bialystok), through Warsaw, and so on the long train route through to Frankfurt, that was how I brought my stuff home.
The rucksack saw me through conversations with a compartment of Armenians (them in Russian, me in Polish, trying to find middle ground), on a train when I was waiting for the conductor, and hoping I could buy my ticket on the train.
It made it through to Frankfurt, and a week with my penfriend. And then, it followed the well-worn school exchange route, back up the Rhine, through Belgium, over to the Channel on the ferry, and on to Dover, where my mum met me.
And on up to London. And finally, on up to Malvern. All by train, barring that ferry.
(Happy sigh.)
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I won’t attempt to chart all the journeys that rucksack has made. I couldn’t begin to try. But there we sat, talking to Junior Reader about a few that we remembered.
Coming up to university – of course. Initial holiday trips – back to Poland, to Germany. Later, further afield: Russia, the Ukraine.
The rucksack took up its beast of burden load with every flat move (and there was one pretty much every year). And, of course, its regular, unsung hero role, carrying shopping back from the supermarket week after week after week.
It made it to the States and back. It journeyed around Italy (also, happily, by train).
The rucksack took Dan to Kenya and Tanzania, a few years back. (I don’t think I’ve ever shoehorned as much into one bag as I did into the rucksack that trip. Don’t quite know how it got packed up again.)
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Little by little, the rucksack gained its own travel patina. The waist belt came adrift, and was not replaced. One of the top sections that may hold climbing equipment has recently come off, as has a useful little clip that holds one of the front straps in place.
I can see small dots of daylight through the bottom of the bag now, in places. It has been relegated to ‘bag to carry dirty washing home in’, and yet it does not complain.
It proved to be the right choice, time after time (and particularly on occasions in the metro systems around the world, facing a flight of stairs). I would hate to have had to do the same with a suitcase, even a wheelie one.
And so we tried to explain this a little to Junior Reader (trying hard not to be too boring about it). When something has accompanied you through adult life, and stood up to the task this faithfully, it’s hard not to become a little maudlin about it.
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The new rucksack has been added to the corral of rucksacks in the attic. It’s not as heavy duty as my red-and-green, but it doesn’t need to be. Not yet.
This is a rucksack for transition: from childhood to adulthood (hoping it lasts that long). It’s for carrying your own clothes on future family holidays. It’s for nights away with grandparents, and maybe the odd solo camping trip some time.
Who knows what else it will do in its time. I suspect it will see quite a bit of London, in transit, and maybe some other European destinations. For now, it’s good to know that you can fit a soft toy of your choice in the top pocket.
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There are various things that speak of adventure, of possibility. Being handed the keys to your first car is surely one of those moments. But I waited until my mid 30s for that point.
There were plenty of buses and trains and planes and ferries and undergrounds to go on before that. There were escalators and travelators, and lots of supermarket carparks to walk through, list in hand, ready to do the weekly shop.
A car will do much of that. But not all. It will give you independence, but it will not give you that sense of managing for yourself in quite the same way.
I don’t think I need to have the stick and spotted hanky to feel like I am heading out on an adventure. (It doesn’t hold much, for one thing.)
But a rucksack: that will take you to the ends of the earth and back, and still deal with transporting a special on potatoes, all for no extra fee.