Dating from around 1970, this rucksack was one of the earliest to come out of the Karrimor factory down in Haslingden, Lancs. Charlie Parsons had founded the Karrimor Bag Company in 1946 catering mainly for the cycling world with saddle bags and panniers, though with the growing trend of folk heading for the hills, the skills of working with canvas and leather were easily adapted to the making of rucksacks. Brown Best of the UK and Bergans of Norway had the GB rucksack market pretty much ‘sewn up’ back then and this early Karrimor is barely distinguishable from some of their products, though things soon changed. With Charlie’s son, Mike, now in charge the company soon overtook Brown Best and Bergans with new, innovative designs throughout the 1970/80s, abandoning the old ‘A’ frame rucksacks in favour of the internal frame along with new versatile, waterproof and hard-wearing fabrics. By the late 1070s it was estimated that Karrimor had 80% of the UK rucksack/backback market. Sadly, as with so many UK companies, Karrimor got into financial difficulties in the late 1990s and were taken over by a succession of other companies. It still exists in 2024, now owned by Sports Direct and a shadow of its former self. This particular sack was kindly donated by John Nelson, along with several others.