The Suitcase

The suitcase has, to my knowledge, been opened about three times in my lifetime and yesterday I was privileged to be present to view its contents, the personal possessions, memento's and collected items that are the essence of my late Father.

For decades the suitcase, one of the old style compressed cardboard types, heavy, bulky and with a thick leather carrying handle was secure from the natural inquisitiveness of us children by being stacked, in the attic store room, under all the other accumulated trappings of a large family. It may always have been in plain sight and therefore of ultimate temptation for prying by small hands but the multiple layers of tents, rucksacks and carpet remnants were enough of a deterrent to keep its contents from being disturbed.

The other disincentive was the knowledge that the suitcase contained a small glass bottle, originally of a type containing vitamins or aspirin, but with a small silvery metallic bead of mercury which could be broken into smaller globules through a frantic shaking of the bottle before, miraculously in the eyes of children, the pieces when calmed merged again into the same single, fascinating shiny pellet. Poison it was but the mystique and alchemy that we had seen with our own eyes was as effective as the suitcase having an explosive booby trapped lock.

Compressed for many years the suitcase was a bit out of shape, the lid now concave in profile. Someone tugging at it in a previous attempt at subversively retrieving it from the pile had caused the handle to become partly detached and it was hanging down uselessly. I had to carry the case down the four flights of stairs from the attic in my arms like a large, unwieldy infant before carefully placing it on the kitchen table.

At first I thought the case was locked but the two outer positioned catches were just a bit corroded into place from the moist air at the top of the draughty house. Mother stood alongside and I think that, mindful of the honour of the occasion, I asked her permission to open it up.The catches resisted initially then moved out and up with a satisfying click. The lid was raised and eased down onto what was left of the table not otherwise taken up by the footprint of the suitcase. I was expecting the suction sound of something hermetically sealed in this process, perhaps a puff of dust or a smell from the past. There was no soundtrack or odour but this did not detract from the significance of the event.

The case was full, the top layer comprising a set of  group photographs of Banking College Inductees with candidates standing in neat rows like the squad picture for a football team at the beginning of  a season, apart that was from the fact that formal business suits were the order of the day. Father was, in his working years, always characterised in the eyes of us children in a dark suit, starched detachable cardboard collar and metal cufflinks but only as to expected in the days when a Bank Manager was a very respected member of the community. We were always very proud when Father was recognised in the street by those who had benefitted from his wise counsel and we regularly saw at first hand the kindness of customers and business folk in our town.This must have been a genetic disposition in things banking because his own father had been known under the respectful title of 'Thomson of The Bank' in an African Newspaper at the end of a posting to British West Africa in the 1930's.  There was, in my recollection, a mass protest by loyal customers when my Father was seen to be badly treated by the faceless bankers at regional office. Mrs Wagg, our next door neighbour even went to the extent of closing her account and moving it to a competitor bank, such was her indignation in support of Father.

It was with some difficulty that I located Father on the photographs as although labelled beneath on a row to row basis he was as young as 17 on one of them, skinny, quiff of hair(obviously ginger even in black and white)  and rosey cheeked. The succession of pictures covered a long period of his 40 or so years with Lloyds Bank, the latest one being from the 1970's with his now receeding hairline making him immediately identified in the ranks of, by then,  senior managers. The photographs were, after study,  carefully layered on the underside of the open lid which exposed another rich seam of Fathers past in the depths of the case.

The Scouting Years were well represented from a carved and whittled woggle through to numerous accomplishment badges, a whistle, sock garters and an intricate woven leather strand halyard no doubt made whilst on a camping expedition.

His two years of National Service were in the Royal Army Medical Corps and the suitcase had a treasured collection of ranking stripes from Private through to Corporal clearly indicating a rapid and justified rise in a regiment in which he enjoyed his work and perhaps, in another time and place, he may have continued in a related profession looking after the physical health of others rather than their financial well being.

A self taught photographic prowess was displayed in an extensive collection of home-developed prints of family and friends. Mother was not sure who the two girls were who sat either side of a youthful Father on a low roadside wall in a steeply sided French Valley. This was during one of his great expeditions, in Europe ,by bike in the post war years when the exchange rate of Francs to Sterling would make the pocket money income of a young British boy the equivalent to that of a fledgling continental tycoon.

Mother was thrilled and a bit emotional to find a large bag full of her letters to Father from their courting and early married years of which she had no knowledge that they had been kept safe. We look forward to extracts from the same in Mother's creative writing if not too steamy , sensual in content or of just "too much information" generally for siblings.

The famous suitcase will , without doubt, have to revisited over and over again because the depth and breadth of the life of Father, as represented only in part by it contents, has to be fully appreciated for its honesty, loyalty and dedication to family which contribute to the endearing qualities of a great man.