Sleeping Bags

Sleeping bags are diuretic. This effect is triggered by the long ritual of securing the fastenings. As a young chap I thought the problem trivial, easily solved by emptying the bladder thoroughly before getting in. I soon found this has no noticeable effect. As the last zip is zipped and the innermost baffle secured, the urgency cries out from the bladder.

Nor can they be ‘fooled’. Or at least it is dangerous to try. One winter night long ago I pretended to fasten my bag, merely wrapping it around myself. I fell instantly asleep. Tossing about, I came unwrapped. Had I not been awakened by extreme urgency of the bladder some time later, I would undoubtedly have died of the hypothermia which, even by that time, was beginning to take hold of me.

But a good sleeping bag can be a fine friend. I was given a Black’s Icelandic for my eighteenth birthday and it kept me snug for decades. As time went by it developed an atmosphere all its own which I grew to love. In due course though, inevitably and sadly, it became so old as to become noisome. Then I left my tent one morning for a few minutes to answer a call of nature and returned to see it attempting to mate with a sheep. On that occasion I was able to get it back but the writing was on the wall. A few weeks later it spontaneously self-composted.

My Life in Bags. In the very beginning we used two or three blankets folded in a special way (described in Scouting for Boys, a book written by Robert Baden Powell before double entendres were invented) and secured with blanket pins.

My first sleeping bag was an ex-army bag filled with feathers. It was white for some reason - maybe to provide sergeants with a pretext for shouting at privates about specks of dirt. Having a cotton shell it had, of course, no resistance to moisture. In an era when tents were cotton ('Don't touch the sides when it's raining!'), with non-fitted groundsheets made by putting an ex-army cape on the floor, the bag would absorb damp as the days went by. This meant, on the one hand, its packed size got smaller, but on the other, its warming power diminished. By about the fourth night it was useless. Nevertheless I had happy times with it. To this day I get a pleasurable buzz of nostalgia when I smell the slightly mouldy smell of damp linen. Barmaid Lil shouted something at me about that when she walked out on me.

A year or two later a new kind of bag came on the market. This had a waterproof groundsheet  attached to the underside, a quilted upper side and a pillow pocket. It also had a side zip. So it was smart and modern compared with our lumpy army jobs. Pity it didn't keep one warm. It was filled with something called kapok, which didn't fluff up, just lying there all slabby. If one rolled over in the night, the groundsheet went on the top. It was only 5 feet 6 inches (165cm) long. It was never easy, when trying to sleep, to avoid the products of one's enthusiastic self-abuse, but in a bag this small, it was nigh impossible. The bag was not a design triumph.

We never knew what kapok was, assuming it to be industrial waste of some sort. Now, in the age of Google, I have been able to find out. It is 'a soft natural fiber from the Kapok tree which is found in Thailand and Indonesia.' I quote here from the website of Dharma Craft, the catalogue of meditation supplies. It's good for stuffing the cushions of those who meditate in the seiza position apparently. So as innocent youngsters we were sleeping in hippy sleeping bags. Bah!

Then I had the above-mentioned Black's Icelandic. Later, and running concurrently with it for a number of years, I had a Black's Tromso. This was quite nice: down, very light, and protected to some extent by a kind of early pertex fabric. I accidentally burnt it down.

Now, to my relief, we live in the modern era of high spec bags, which are also, in real terms, much cheaper than the olden days ones. I favour the ones made of artificial fibres because they are easy to wash - essential given the heavy use I give them. So no nostalgically fusty miasma in my bag now, just the fresh smell of fabric conditioner.

With such bags it is even possible to experience a phenomenon unheard of in my early days: that of being too hot!  This is certainly the case in Iceland sometimes. At 3 or 4 in the morning, one feels the frosty chill creeping in and draws all the fastenings snugly tight. 2 hours later, the sun is high in the sky and the tent has become an oven. A few weeks in these conditions converted my good friend 'Chunky' Babcock into my good friend 'Hells Bells You've Lost a Lot of Weight Are You Ill Or Something' Babcock.

Inner bags. These are a facility much enjoyed by bondage aficionados. The technique is simple. One gets into the inner bag, then into one’s sleeping bag. As one rolls and turns, the inner bag twists, binding one with increasing tightness, leading eventually to helpless, submissive immobility, and a satisfying conclusion. I imagine.  

Coitus Interruptus: A Warning From History: Many years ago, as a lusty young chap with a lusty young girlfriend, I attempted this traditional procedure while we were both squeezed into the Blacks Icelandic. Needless to say coitus could not be interruptus, there being nowhere to interruptus to in such a confined space. Happily, on this occasion, what followed was limited to no more than a spell of anxious waiting. So you have been warned - don't attempt it!

Having said that, of course modern bags have full length zips enabling two bags to be joined by those wishing for intimacy. You young 'uns have it so easy these days.