G'day Clinton,

I only just opened this thread (the moment must have become sufficiently idle ...) and your linked photo confirms that the Mk VIII gas mask bag you sought is indeed what almost every Australian primary school kid carried off to school, when I was of that age (1950 - 1956). Only when I started high school did I get a posher "Globite" (moulded fibre ... with "imitation leather" finish) school case ... then a leather brief case in senior years.

I presume we used a hell of a lot of those surplus gas mask bags ... so many that they became decidedly un-surplus and cheap Indian copies appeared (new, but not quite the same quality) in surplus stores during the 1960s ... and were still around in the 1980s, when I bought some for carrying odd pieces of lighting gear in the photographic department I then ran!

Regards,

Bob