Sack that backpack

Backpacks, or rucksacks as they were called in my youth. I remember well borrowing one from an aunt to take on my first ever holiday without the parents. I say holiday, but it was more a form of torture. Much as I love the Lake District, trundling through it with a metal framed and heavy canvas monster on my back was a hot, tiring and unpleasantly sweaty ordeal.

From there grew my dislike of the backpack and my love of better designed luggage. Good luggage has becomes an obsession and I have bags for all occasions.
Brighton and Hove is a magnet for backpack users, at times the brightly coloured back pack toting foreign students are scary, like swarms of insects.
The real trouble is on the bus and I am a bus user, I love them. A few days ago I was travelling into town and boarded a bus. I waved my electronic ticket at the driver and turned to find a seat. There, in the narrowest part of the bus was a man, around my age, wearing a huge backpack which made it impossible for me to pass. I suggested he take it off and place it on the luggage rack, after all that is what it is there for. He refused and I was forced to squeeze past almost knocking him over. I found a seat and was then subjected to a barrage of abuse after which he finally removed the backpack and weaved toward me.

On reaching me he then demanded that I stand up to let him sit down. There were plenty of other seats to be had so I refused. I was not being difficult but I was suffering the pangs of a gout attack that day and given that he was at most only a few years older than me I decided to stay put and suffer his abuse.
I have for years stood up on buses to let people who clearly were in more need of a seat than me, but I’m 60 now and I feel that it’s my turn to sit down. How odd it is that people seem to feel the need to stand in that narrow part of the lower deck even if there are seats to be had. Are buses some sort of white knuckle ride? Please, if you must, take the bag off your back!