User rating:
9/10
Dave
asks
: I have a Blacks Good Companion Minor but we lost the poles moving house. Any idea if I could get some more??
Black produced The Good Companions back in the late 60’s & 70’s. They offered three variants, The Major, Standard and Minor and could been seen in most campsites around the country. The Major, as the name suggests, is the larger of the tents, depending on the size of the occupants, it could sleep three, four at a squeeze. The Standard sleeps two comfortably and the Minor could sleep two but one is idle.
They are made from orange Egyptian cotton and consist of the inner and a flysheet, the early models had a single pole in the middle of the tent, the later models had an ‘A’ frame; this allowed the flysheet to be put up without the inner being in place and was idle on hot summer night when you was staying only one night and you needed a quick shelter.
The door on the inner tent was big, opening up the whole front of the tent allowing good access, uninterrupted by any pole, into the tent. There was one zip and the mud flap of the doors tucked under the ground sheet to seal the inside from any weather. The doors could be pegged out to make a bit of shelter while cooking in bad weather.
The only problem with the Good Companions is it had no real covered storage unlike it competitor the ‘Vango Force Ten’, however Blacks tried to compensate by offering an extended flysheet, which I only saw on the Standard.
My overall impression to the Good Companions is that it is a great base/group tent of it’s time, as you can see by the picture I have all three, not used as I wish to keep them in good condition.
Written by Richard Smith
Need more? Further information on this Tent may be directly obtained from 
blacks.co.uk.