tim's experiment

The largest press conference I ever attended was assembled to meet George Best. Mr Best had been a magical footballer for Manchester United in the 60s but was now past his peak and quite a long way down the other side of it.

The occasion was Mr Best’s recruitment by Fulham Football Club, then in the Second Division (now known as the Championship) and in need of reinforcements.

The only thing I remember about this occasion (it was a long time ago) is that a woman was sitting next to me, and exhibiting unmistakable signs of growing distress. It turned out that she was representing the Daily Mail, no less, but had discovered on her arrival that she had no pen with which to make notes. I was surreptitiously shocked: elite reporter, no pen?

Still, she had come to the right place. I was only present because Fulham had played Nottingham Forest – the team I followed for a Derby newspaper — that afternoon. There was no question of me being expected to write anything about Mr Best and I had time and leisure to come to the rescue of damsels in distress.

Also I had a bag. This was unusual in those days. My bag was marketed as a Reporter’s Bag, though I never met another reporter who had one. It hung from your shoulder and had room for the shorthand notepad which we all used in those days, with plenty of space for other things: spare pens and paper, a paperback book for long waits, a bar of chocolate for long waits which extended into mealtimes, a map of the area in which I might be expected to find interviewees, and so on.

So I was able to lend the unprepared Mail female a pen. This is as close as I ever got to working on Fleet Street: my spare Biro briefly reported for the Mail. I have often wondered since what Ms Mail was doing there. Female football reporters were as rare as hen’s teeth in those days and the Mail certainly had none. Perhaps she was from the celebrite substance abuse desk.

A quick conclusion for Mr Best’s fans of his part in the story. His stay at Fulham did not last long. It did though last long enough to include the reverse fixture in which they visited Nottingham. Mr Best did nothing spectacular and Fulham lost. Nevertheless the entire Nottingham Forest team trooped down the dressing room corridor afterwards to ask for his autograph. He was a legend.

The reason why this bit of distant history popped into my head the other day is that what was then a rather eccentric habit has now become commonplace. Men carry bags.

When I was a reporter this was almost unheard of. People like postmen who needed a bag for their work would of course carry one. Men who took work home, or wished it to be thought that they took work home, might carry a briefcase. The rest of us were expected to manage with our pockets.

These were much more numerous than they are now. As well as four in your trousers – two in the front, two in the back – you had at least two large pockets in the lower part of your jacket and another two – one inside and one outside – at the top. There was also a small pocket at the top of your shirtfront. People with respectable jobs were expected to wear a suit. Less respectable jobs like teaching and journalism might permit a jacket and trousers.

Generally on holidays, days off and such you still wore the jacket, though you might wear a less formal shirt and take the jacket off indoors. Nowadays, walking round Central on a weekday you might think that nothing has changed: hordes of men wear suits.

But walking round other places, where you meet lots of men who are for one reason or another not working, or at least not working in an office, the picture is completely different. Trousers have endured but tops are now routinely pocketless.

This has left men with a problem we did not have before, namely where to put all the stuff which for one reason or another you don’t want to leave home without: wallet, mobile phone, reading glasses, door keys, folding shopping bag, very small umbrella…

A popular solution to this problem is the rucksack. This has ample space, often comes with convenient subdivisions, and hangs on your back out of the way. I carried one for a while… and discovered the drawbacks: it leads to embarrassing collisions on crowded MTR trains, and has to be awkwardly twirled round to the front if you want to take anything out of it. It is also, I suppose, a pickpocket’s delight because you can’t really keep an eye on it.

And so to the increasing popularity of the shoulder bag, to which I recently returned myself. My current shoulder bag is much like the old one except that it has zipped compartments and is in a rather lurid colour, probably because it was not designed with men in mind. Most male users manage to find a black one.

One occasionally sees other kinds of bag on men. A sort of Bat Belt with one or more pouches hanging from it crops up. Some punters go for a bag which hangs diagonally across the chest. Careful examination, though, reveals one boundary which is never breached. No man carries anything which could be mistaken for a handbag. We are all more enlightened about sex differences these days, but there are limits.