Often called ‘The First Lady of Scottish Skiing’, Myrtle Simpson is a lady of many parts, one of which was her dream of having a museum of Scottish skiing. To that end, she gathered together a vast array of skis and associated memorabilia to furnish her dream. Unfortunately that dream did not come true as she was unable to find a suitable venue. The upshot of this was that Myrtle, under the aegis of the Scottish Ski Club, donated the collection to us. It’s taken us years to get it all archived correctly, and we’re still working at it. Just put ‘skis’ into our search box and you’ll find it.

The Napier family donated several pairs of skis to Myrtle’s collection, and this rucksack came too. It dates from the 1950s and was made by the Brown Best Company, which started out by making luggage items way back in the 1800s, and later diversified to a variety of rucksacks. Just about everyone in the mountains back in the 1950s had an ‘A’ frame rucksack, often made by Brown Best, or their Norwegian competitors, Bergans.

So, many thanks to Myrtle, the Scottish Ski Club, and the Napier family, for donating the rucksack along with the wee bit of history that came with it.