Almanac Life: Ye Old Gladstone Bag

‘Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag,
And smile, smile, smile…’
What’s the use of worrying?
It never was worthwhile
so pack up your troubles
in your old kit-bag,
And smile, smile, smile.’
(George Asaf and Felix Powell, 1915)

(Decades old (circa 1920s-30s) advertising sketch found in an old family storage box and provided by a friend formerly of Piangil, VIC – artist and any publishing medium is unknown.)

 

Recently while interrogating the internet, I came across the following gem of a memory jogger and nostalgia inducing remark: ‘Remember when your dad always wore a hat, smelled of Old Spice or Tabac and carried a kit bag (or Gladstone bag) with him to work?’

 

Ahh, the old Gladstone bag – I remember it very well. My dad had one (he didn’t wear a hat though), my grandfather had one, I recall extended family members having one, as did many of my friends and colleagues. To own a Gladstone was de rigueur in the day for wharfies, bus conductors, railway workers, shearers as well as many office types to name a few. It seemed like everyone who was anyone had a Gladstone.

 

To explain to those readers of considerably younger age than I, as many of the Footy Almanac fraternity are (!), the Gladstone is basically a medium sized rectangular suitcase made of stiffened brown leather built over a rigid metal frame. It has a strong leather handle on top of the metal frame and a metal lock on the side. Its most distinctive feature was the wide-opening top, which allowed quick and easy access to its contents (see sketch above and photographs below).

 

History informs us that the Gladstone was originally designed in the mid-19th century by a Mr J.G. Beard, a leather craftsman in the City of Westminster, U.K. It was named after the then British Prime Minister William Gladstone. Its purpose was to be a durable and flexible alternative to the trunk-style luggage of the day.

 

When living with my maternal grandparents at one time and attending primary school in Newcastle, NSW, I can recall my grandmother packing my merchant seaman grandfather’s lunch and morning tea in his Gladstone – cut sandwiches, cake, scones, biscuits etc, thermos of tea, the Newcastle Morning Herald, log book and pen, his wallet and a change of clothes in case he needed them. He referenced his packed lunch as his ‘crib’. Older readers will recall the use and meaning of this term which I thought belonged to a bygone era until Warwick, my Queensland geologist mate, informed me just recently that it is still widely used by workers in the mining industry.

 

In the small country town of my childhood the local Commercial Savings Bank of Australia bank was only open on Thursdays and Friday mornings, when it was staffed by employees from Hobart. This was the sole time that the local businesses were able to deposit their weekly takings and transact any other banking matters. I can recall one local shop keeper casually strolling to the bank every Friday morning to make a deposit with his weekly takings in his Gladstone. All the locals knew what was in the bag. We kids used to wonder how much he might have had in the Gladstone. He would stop and chat with whoever was about. Imagine that happening today! Very different times.

 

Hmmm, on reflection, I wonder now where the local traders might have kept their daily takings between Saturday to Wednesday of each week before bank opening time on a Thursday. Granted, they were very different times, but by today’s standards a situation ripe for a small town heist!

 

For decades in Australia, the Gladstone was a symbol of the professional man – used by doctors (medical and veterinary), lawyers, and business travellers. Its sturdy build and timeless design meant it could last decades. It was often passed down from father to son. In particular and especially, the Gladstone was the practical and recognisable kit bag for players of most sporting codes across the country. For football players it was the carry option to transport their gear and other essentials to training and games.

 

When playing footy in Hobart I remember one of my teammates after training forgetting to put his Gladstone in the boot of his car leaving it on the ground while he did something else. Result: he drove over his Gladstone and flattened it and its contents. Bit of swearing ensued but he picked it up, brushed it down, bashed it into shape and continued to use it a long time after – maybe he still has it!

 

 

 

(Still owned and used by friend Peter Callinan of Brady’s Lake in Tasmania to carry his gear on trips/overnight stays.)

 

Among my school footy mates, I was probably the last to own a Gladstone and I desperately wanted one – five kids, and one wage etc however, didn’t place a Gladstone purchase high on the list of my mother’s spending priorities at the time. It was something of a tradition back then to have one, a tradition that has now disappeared over the years. At age 16 years my desire was satisfied when mum surprised me with a brand new brown, shiny Gladstone with my name printed on one side in bright gold lettering – ‘A.W. Barden’. I always suspected that my mum was helped out by my sports loving grandfather who probably bought and paid for it as he did with my first ever pair of cricket batting gloves. I was so thrilled that I never asked the question.

 

Eventually, I stopped using my Gladstone bag in favour of a new North Hobart ‘Robins’ footy gear bag, after a work colleague, Roger Viney, commented one day that he had spotted me walking to work with my Gladstone and I looked more like a wharfie than an office clerk. I could sometimes be a bit sensitive in my younger days and didn’t want to be seen as ‘uncool’. No offence to wharfies intended.

 

The Gladstone of course was the norm for the sporting fraternity of my youth well before the branded often corporate sponsored backpacks, hydration belts, and slick zippered medical kits, prevalent today. Built tough and lined with history, it swung at the side of many an old trainer on muddy footy ovals and country cricket pitches in Australian towns and cities alike. With its leather sides scuffed and its metal clasp worn from years of quick opens, to the sports trainers of old the Gladstone wasn’t just an ordinary kit bag – it was like a badge of honour.

 

Whether it was a bush footy match in Victoria, a suburban rugby league or union clash in Brisbane or Sydney, or a local cricket game in Adelaide, you’d spot the trainer or team ‘medic’ in his white overalls (they were all male in my experience) jogging out with a Gladstone in hand. It was an enduring symbol of toughness, care and tradition. It was also more than just a medical kit. It was like a mobile clubhouse, a symbol of readiness, and a trusted companion in moments of injury, loss and triumph.

 

What was in the Gladstone that trainers carried and prized? Ask any old player or club man and you’ll get a list that reads like a mix between a first-aid kit and an Ian White’s bush essences remedy guides: bandages, tape, smelling salts, scissors, Dettol, liniment, oranges, water and even vinegar. I once witnessed an old trainer at Fingal in Tasmania taking a sip from a hip flask of whisky he kept in his Gladstone ‘for emergencies’.

 

The presence of the Gladstone in the hand of your footy trainer gave players comfort. It meant someone was looking out for you. It also meant business – the man (and it was usually a man) carrying it wasn’t just a helper, he was a very real part of the team. Heaven help you if you should, as a player, delve into your trainer’s bag as I once did. The wrath of a footy trainer in the protection of his bag of tricks is not to be under estimated and deleterious to one’s well-being – ‘Hey, p…s off out of it. What the f…k are you looking for in there? You’ll mess me bag up. Bloody hell. Ask me if you want somethin outta it’!

 

In my first country football senior game at 16, I got slammed in a pack and hurt my hip. The relieving trainer (not the regular trainer) rushed out, rubbed some liniment on my hip, gave me a swig of water and said words to the effect of, ‘Dunno what you did mate, but now you’re right. Up you get, go and get into it’. Ten minutes later I couldn’t run and was in an ambulance on my way to the hospital where I spent three days recovering. Fond memories however, and exciting days, fun times, good people and a well-meaning relief trainer!

 

As I write, the Gladstone is etched into my memory alongside the smell of liniment and the sound of studded boots on a dressing room’s concrete floors. I’m sure that some reading this piece would have memories, as I do, of the old trainer in the footy shed with his Gladstone – supposedly always knowing just what to do when a player went down, always with the right tool or tonic such as water (!) for the job.

 

Times change of course. Nowadays trainers carry lightweight, waterproof backpacks or rolling kits filled with everything from defibrillators to electrolyte gels. The old leather Gladstone has largely been retired in favour of these more practical options. Yet when nostalgia beckons me again, something feels different without it. The modern gear may be more efficient, but it lacks the personality – the sense of old-world charm, dignity and panache, the patina of age, the smell of leather and camphor and the history carried in every mark, dent, rust spot, scratch and crease. The Gladstone had weight, not just physically but emotionally. It marked the carrier as someone important, someone with experience, someone who had seen it all.

 

The Gladstone is very much part of a sporting club’s folklore. A recognisable piece of sporting history. One trainer I knew had a nickname for his Gladstone –  ‘Mr Fixit’. There are Gladstones that have attended every game for decades and still bear the blood stains of a particularly brutal game. The Gladstone wasn’t just a useful carry bag. By my reckoning it is arguably a character in its own right, steeped in the very history, culture and spirit of a club.

 

Today, the Gladstone lives on in memory, in clubroom display cases, and in the occasional sighting at country matches where tradition still holds strong – I actually saw one recently in the gatekeeper’s shelter at a game in Kyneton, VIC (versus Romsey). I don’t know what it held, but it wasn’t footy records. My friends and I were told by the local footy time keeper, that recently the printed country footy record has been replaced by an app!  I don’t like that change very much. I always enjoyed reading the printed country footy records.

 

Some Gladstones have been passed down through generations of trainers and volunteers. There are clubs that sometimes keep them as heirlooms in their clubroom’s display cabinets. One can see old sporting club’s Gladstones in some country town museums as well. The thoroughly recommended sporting museum in Queenstown, Tasmania is one such excellent example that comes to mind.

 

More than just a piece of luggage, the Gladstone for me is a reminder of the more hands-on, community-driven times I once lived in as a young boy growing up. It’s memory speaks to the care, commitment, and character of the local people behind the scenes – those, like old Vic Webb, the regular trainer of my small town’s football club who patched you up, rubbed you down with liniment, gave you a drink of water (the elixir that fixed everything), sometimes an orange to suck on, calmed you down, and then sent you back into the cut and thrust of the game.

 

I can hear Vic as I write: ‘Here son, have some water. You’ll be right soon enuff. It’ll fix ya’!

 

To read more by Allan Barden click HERE.

 

 

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Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

 

 

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