Why did we carry stuff around in "sports bags" with small handles, rather than backpacks. Looking back seems stupid, I constantly had callouses on the hand i carried the bag with.
heh. I actually got given a very flash leather sports holdall for xmas and it is indeed fecking useless as it's so annoying always having one hand taken up by a bag.
Today, i carry a man bag with.. reading glasses, phone, wallet, keys, important documents, office ID card, oyster card and passport. It's a "messenger bag" and I am never without it (and never take it off in a pub)
Sails, I got a briefcase for my 21st. I still have it and the filofax. I keep all my essential documents in it so I know where they are when I need them.
We all looked like mini executives strolling between lessons with our Samsonites. For a while I was vaguely cool as I had my dad's old vintage 70's briefcase.
brief cases must have been a public school thing - you would have been laughed out of my school with a briefcase - you had to carry a holdall, preferably over your shoulder (which teachers were constantly telling us to stop as it had a tendency to knock out shorter pupils).
I had a lilac Head bag. Those of you using briefcases definitely did not go to state school. You would have been ripped mercilessly. I think one or two boys did use them but they were very much in the "weird" camp. As an adult that's not a nice thing to remember but it's the truth of what I thought at the time.
Guy it was a prep school thing and meant day boys could leave all their books at school overnight. Secondary school we just had folders for each subject and would carry the relevant folders to lessons and store them in our studies in between.
Full on adult cases. By the time I was 12 I had a pilot's flight bag to hold all the stuff I needed and it was nightmare getting it on to the top shelf of the rack.
I think one or two boys did use them but they were very much in the "weird" camp.
One of our class turned up with one, but he was like 6' in Year 7 and played a bit of rugby so no-one ever said anything about it. At all. It was like it just didn't exist. You'd see people look at it, go to open their mouths, but then just pretend they hadn't seen it. Funny in hindsight.
We were reasonably close to the rave venue known as The Pleasuredome at Ingomells near Skegness. So it was compulsory to have over the shoulder record bags with some kind of rave related symbol on it. That then evolved into more mainstream over the shoulder bags - Adidas, Kangol et al. It's the kind of bag I still use now. Have never owned a briefcase, rucksack or sports bag.
this thread reminds me of the uber briefcase vvanker at my school. ridiculously tall and lanky and a complete unco. someone sneaked two house bricks into his briefcase just before the end of the school day and he loped lopsidedly all the way home before he realised.
Briefcase w**kers at school. Usually strangely lanky folk with something approaching, but not quite a moustache, poor armpit maintenance, and into things like electronics club which involved buggering about with soldering irons and transistors in the physics labs. Walked with a strange gait involving a lift of the foot arch onto the ball like a heavy rock ballerina. A brown clickety snap attache case completed the look.
Tamora, I recall those bags (had a few in various colours) but hated them as everyone could see your wares and indeed you needed a bag within a bag - useless. They also had jelly shoes although I think you can still buy them for girls.
Mutters that is a remarkably accurate description of his walk. Knees bent throughout, leading with the chin, arms ramrod straight and aimed unerringly towards the ground, briefcase attached to the end of one of them, and somehow his whole upper body seeming to bounce with each step. It was truly Python-esque.
Rucksacks were popular too, you could write or draw on them in felt tip pen. Some arty kids had creations that rivalled anything in the school art room
I had a satchel which I think was a hand me down in primary school. Most of the time we didn’t have a bag then just pockets. I had a bigger satchel maybe a bit trendier in senior school. I am trying to think where we hid the cigarettes and to think 40 years on I am still hiding them.
I had one of those jansport rucksacks and then a Blueprint rucksack. Those back packs with the brown leather on the bottom.
Keepin' it real.
Those were some of my minor uniform rebellions including too long hair and a blue crewneck wool cable knit jumper rather than the standard polyester crap. And black vans suede shoes instead of leather polished ones. Damn I was cool. All totally worth the Friday detentions
I remember my excitement at us getting a suitcase with wheels. It literally was a suitcase with wheels stuck on it though - full horseless carriage approach - and the only way of moving it around was a strap which, of course, cut viciously into your hand after about 2 mins.
Otherwise I had a Head sports bag which I was v proud of. It had straps of a size that made it super uncomfortable to put on your back so you ended up lopsided as you lugged it along. It had an end portion you could zip off and carry separately. But why?
oh and my ridiculous private school insisted on briefcases for us all. When we moved and I moved school you could have any bag you liked. Kind of liked the briefcase in a way - made you focus more - I've still got it.
On e of the youngest Ls bought a nice new work bag so we were talking about this recently and how my parents bought be a good leather briefcase when I started my first job in 1983. I also then a couple of years later bought my own really lovely huge one for carrying loads of files around as the work communal ones were never available. It feels like a different age now.
I still have the wheeled thing I use if I have a lot of papers and files to take to meetings or court which can also be useful on holiday too - not leather but still terribly useful.
That reminds me of my godfather buying me a briefcase to start work back in 1999. Inside it was an envelope which said "Your First Briefs" and inside was a black lacy thong that I suspect he'd got his PA to buy for him. His sense of humour has not got any better in old age.
Like Medley, I had a head bag with the slightly too long straps. It was a right pain if you tried to wear it like a backpack when cycling as it would flop from side to side and the top of the bag would periodically smack you in the back of the head if you leaned too far forward.
I also remember the absurdity of the "one strap only" rule for backpacks although it did lead to the odd comedy moment when someone's one strap would give way under the load of books and PE kit and they would get half way down a corridor before realising what had happened.
We all have our limits, wang. I have no ability with electronics. Mechanics, engineering etc yes. But on a car resto, for example, I always pay someone else to sort the wiring loom.
My nephews don't have school lockers. Apparently to stop kids hiding weed/cigarettes or whatever they're into these days.
Instead, they trudge around with backpacks almost larger and heavier than they are, with all their books and sports kit etc for the entire day. Pretty sure it's stunting their growth. FFS.
Oh, and I had the standard, school-issue sports bag. Which was brand new and dorky when I got it, and beaten up and had cred by the time I finished.
Definitely not a backpack. And the one thing worse than a backpack was wearing the straps over both shoulders. Even today I struggle to do that without feeling like (even more of a) dork.
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Same reason we didn't have wheels on the bottom of suitcases.
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You brought a handbag to school? Perhaps you were emulating Mrs Thatcher.
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A suitcase with wheels? Real men don't get the earth to carry their luggage for them, mate. They carry it themselves.
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Wot your chap said there about carrying your luggage
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Neon sports socks. WTF.
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heh. I actually got given a very flash leather sports holdall for xmas and it is indeed fecking useless as it's so annoying always having one hand taken up by a bag.
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Yes, your valet must be most annoyed by that.
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Backpacks were considered nerdy iirc
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A black Head holdall with detachable end pocket was all you needed.
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I had a briefcase which was pretty practical for carrying books and stationery.
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in the 90s, I lauged at men with their "man bags"
Today, i carry a man bag with.. reading glasses, phone, wallet, keys, important documents, office ID card, oyster card and passport. It's a "messenger bag" and I am never without it (and never take it off in a pub)
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Sails, I got a briefcase for my 21st. I still have it and the filofax. I keep all my essential documents in it so I know where they are when I need them.
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My school didn't have lockers and just had big metal racks where everybody was assigned a space to store their briefcase outside lessons.
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A backpack with both straps in use marked you out as a french exchange student.
Sails that is funny. I had a canvas messenger bag, the flap covered in patches and band names scrawled in marker pen etc.
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cos Sport Billy had one
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Manbags. Christ.
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Another briefcase w@nker here. There are too many "Will from Inbetweeners" comparisons to list unfortunately.
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Delsey or Samsonite?
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Samsonsite. Ridged. For my own pleasure.
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"I had a briefcase which was pretty practical for carrying books and stationery."
Brief case w anker
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yes, to have a back pack was to be considered a right dawk - something europeans and americans kids did but had no place in britain.
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Naf Naf coats
Naf Co 59 coats for the kids whose parents bought their clothes off the market
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We all looked like mini executives strolling between lessons with our Samsonites. For a while I was vaguely cool as I had my dad's old vintage 70's briefcase.
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brief cases must have been a public school thing - you would have been laughed out of my school with a briefcase - you had to carry a holdall, preferably over your shoulder (which teachers were constantly telling us to stop as it had a tendency to knock out shorter pupils).
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I had a lilac Head bag. Those of you using briefcases definitely did not go to state school. You would have been ripped mercilessly. I think one or two boys did use them but they were very much in the "weird" camp. As an adult that's not a nice thing to remember but it's the truth of what I thought at the time.
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Puma and then various Adidas sports bags
Black leather briefcase was compulsory at my grammar school, plus the wearing of caps in the first form (year 7).
I still have/use a lovely ox-blood Italian leather 'upright' briefcase for work.
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What Mistee and Guy said. I can't even imagine it. Were they adult ones or special kids briefcases?
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Guy it was a prep school thing and meant day boys could leave all their books at school overnight. Secondary school we just had folders for each subject and would carry the relevant folders to lessons and store them in our studies in between.
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Full on adult cases. By the time I was 12 I had a pilot's flight bag to hold all the stuff I needed and it was nightmare getting it on to the top shelf of the rack.
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there were no briefcases at my school.
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One of our class turned up with one, but he was like 6' in Year 7 and played a bit of rugby so no-one ever said anything about it. At all. It was like it just didn't exist. You'd see people look at it, go to open their mouths, but then just pretend they hadn't seen it. Funny in hindsight.
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Calluses? WTF did you have in ur school bag?
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I think I had a briefcase for a bit then a sportsbag/holdall type thing when I decided I wanted to have m9s.
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We were reasonably close to the rave venue known as The Pleasuredome at Ingomells near Skegness. So it was compulsory to have over the shoulder record bags with some kind of rave related symbol on it. That then evolved into more mainstream over the shoulder bags - Adidas, Kangol et al. It's the kind of bag I still use now. Have never owned a briefcase, rucksack or sports bag.
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What about those awful plastic holey bags with the small handles. You had to put a carrier bag inside so your stuff didn’t fall out
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Shout out to the haversack crew.
We knew what was what.
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this thread reminds me of the uber briefcase vvanker at my school. ridiculously tall and lanky and a complete unco. someone sneaked two house bricks into his briefcase just before the end of the school day and he loped lopsidedly all the way home before he realised.
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Pinkus, I was also there
(waves glowstick)
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Unco
Have not heard that term for a season or two.
Briefcase w**kers at school. Usually strangely lanky folk with something approaching, but not quite a moustache, poor armpit maintenance, and into things like electronics club which involved buggering about with soldering irons and transistors in the physics labs. Walked with a strange gait involving a lift of the foot arch onto the ball like a heavy rock ballerina. A brown clickety snap attache case completed the look.
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Brown not black. That was the giveaway. The name’s Bond, Darren Bond.
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Tamora, I recall those bags (had a few in various colours) but hated them as everyone could see your wares and indeed you needed a bag within a bag - useless. They also had jelly shoes although I think you can still buy them for girls.
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In 1970s Wakefield I had an authentic blue Adidas bag.
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Mutters that is a remarkably accurate description of his walk. Knees bent throughout, leading with the chin, arms ramrod straight and aimed unerringly towards the ground, briefcase attached to the end of one of them, and somehow his whole upper body seeming to bounce with each step. It was truly Python-esque.
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I was partial to a head bag in the 90s
They had handles too
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Standard scuffed black Adidas sports bag The funny thing was the little kids had to have them but were so big they could hardly manage.
More than once we thought if we tipped that bag out we could probably fit the kid inside.
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Rucksacks were popular too, you could write or draw on them in felt tip pen. Some arty kids had creations that rivalled anything in the school art room
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There was more than one person with a rucksack at the Pixies this weekend. C unting millennials get everywhere these days.
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Record bags were the norm for us. Backpacks were for geeks
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There's a bloke at my club who uses one of those old small 1980s Head bags as his gym bag.
But instead of it saying "Head" on the side it says "Concord" from when he flew on Concord.
That's pretty cool IMO.
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*Concorde
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Did he steal it? I had a colleague once who thought stealing from Concorde was ok, but let’s face it it’s just gross crass and noove.
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Briefcases, lol.
I remember my leather-imitation record bag at school in the 90s, I thought I was so chic because it was leather-ish.
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Isn’t this where one of the you should drop a grand on a prezzie for a mate or you’re poor rof t wats crops up to shame you?
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I had a satchel which I think was a hand me down in primary school. Most of the time we didn’t have a bag then just pockets. I had a bigger satchel maybe a bit trendier in senior school. I am trying to think where we hid the cigarettes and to think 40 years on I am still hiding them.
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I had one of those jansport rucksacks and then a Blueprint rucksack. Those back packs with the brown leather on the bottom.
Keepin' it real.
Those were some of my minor uniform rebellions including too long hair and a blue crewneck wool cable knit jumper rather than the standard polyester crap. And black vans suede shoes instead of leather polished ones. Damn I was cool. All totally worth the Friday detentions
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Is it possible there is another explanation for the calluses on your palms at that time?
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I remember my excitement at us getting a suitcase with wheels. It literally was a suitcase with wheels stuck on it though - full horseless carriage approach - and the only way of moving it around was a strap which, of course, cut viciously into your hand after about 2 mins.
Otherwise I had a Head sports bag which I was v proud of. It had straps of a size that made it super uncomfortable to put on your back so you ended up lopsided as you lugged it along. It had an end portion you could zip off and carry separately. But why?
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oh and my ridiculous private school insisted on briefcases for us all. When we moved and I moved school you could have any bag you liked. Kind of liked the briefcase in a way - made you focus more - I've still got it.
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"which involved buggering about with soldering irons and transistors"
Isnt this how you spend every weekend?
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there was a fairly longstanding craze for webbing canvas backpacks which were to be graphiteed artfully or in any event coolly
eg with the SMPE MNDS logo (can't really do it in type)
at my secondary school no one used bags, you had to carry your books and files around in a pile under one arm
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obviously you never ever wore both straps of a backpack
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On e of the youngest Ls bought a nice new work bag so we were talking about this recently and how my parents bought be a good leather briefcase when I started my first job in 1983. I also then a couple of years later bought my own really lovely huge one for carrying loads of files around as the work communal ones were never available. It feels like a different age now.
I still have the wheeled thing I use if I have a lot of papers and files to take to meetings or court which can also be useful on holiday too - not leather but still terribly useful.
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That reminds me of my godfather buying me a briefcase to start work back in 1999. Inside it was an envelope which said "Your First Briefs" and inside was a black lacy thong that I suspect he'd got his PA to buy for him. His sense of humour has not got any better in old age.
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Like Medley, I had a head bag with the slightly too long straps. It was a right pain if you tried to wear it like a backpack when cycling as it would flop from side to side and the top of the bag would periodically smack you in the back of the head if you leaned too far forward.
I also remember the absurdity of the "one strap only" rule for backpacks although it did lead to the odd comedy moment when someone's one strap would give way under the load of books and PE kit and they would get half way down a corridor before realising what had happened.
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We all have our limits, wang. I have no ability with electronics. Mechanics, engineering etc yes. But on a car resto, for example, I always pay someone else to sort the wiring loom.
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Went to state school and no one, i mean no one had a briefcase.
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You would rightfully have had your khunt kicked in if you turned up to my school with a briefcase.
One of these slung as low as possible over one shoulder or GTFO
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My nephews don't have school lockers. Apparently to stop kids hiding weed/cigarettes or whatever they're into these days.
Instead, they trudge around with backpacks almost larger and heavier than they are, with all their books and sports kit etc for the entire day. Pretty sure it's stunting their growth. FFS.
Oh, and I had the standard, school-issue sports bag. Which was brand new and dorky when I got it, and beaten up and had cred by the time I finished.
Definitely not a backpack. And the one thing worse than a backpack was wearing the straps over both shoulders. Even today I struggle to do that without feeling like (even more of a) dork.
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Absolute state of this.
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