Wallet

Brett Charlton
Sep 9, 2018 · 9 min read

I have a pair of shoes. These shoes have carried me over the Great Wall of China, under, over and inside St Pete’s and held me fast looking over the border to North Korea. Our nearest star has weathered these shoes from many different angles. Micro elements of the past and present have entered the nerve endings in the soles of my feet through these shoes, shaping and guiding the other soul that lives inside this skin. So, like when a body part falters and you seek the guidance of a human that has dedicated their journey to that particular joint or organ, thus a crack in the sole of my shoe demanded that a professional be consulted.

After dropping my obviously much loved shoes to the cobbler in Launceston town I began to meander my way back to my world of ones and zeros. Being the first week of spring in Tasmania, like our little blue ball tilting that little closer to sun, winter weary eyes angle up from the pavement to observe the magnolias and the shortening shadows of the trees that are budding up in preparation to grow that little taller. I imagine a bear that wakes up in cave after hibernation, rubs his eyes and four and a half billion years of evolutionary synapses connect to create a feeling, if not translated exactly from Bearinese to English, would be a little like “thank goodness that is over”. Spring — it cannot be understated.

There are a few times that detours unplanned have touched me in a way that I would call momentous. We all have these moments, “sliding doors” is one way of putting it (if you subscribe to “last millennium Gwyneth Paltrow staring movie references”). On this particular occasion I extended my commute back to my office by adding a block to my normal route. In truth, the reason for this was because a little shop just up the road from my office used to sell cakes and whilst I am on a continual quest to decrease belt notches, it was the first week of spring and that is an occasion…..isn’t it? I wasn’t sure if they still sold cakes, but surely another fifty metres of walking would justify a slice of something homemade. Just before the “cake” destination a new shop had opened selling antiques right next door — not a sliding door, but an alluring window front of history positioned just right for the inquiring and inquisitive passing homo sapien — me.

I am guilty of buying things. I know it is a problem and occasionally I get in trouble for it. Most of the time I am able to mince the words just enough to get away with a purchase. “This signed first edition book of ‘Willie Nelson’s Roll me Up and Smoke Me When I Die’ is a piece of history” sort of sentence. Some people get it. Most roll their eyes. So when I saw a leather wallet positioned on a shelf of a wooden writing desk amongst an antler handle cut throat razor, a marble and silver fountain pen holder, old steel keys and a brass ashtray — I began formulating the justification even before my hands picked it up. There is something very cool about touching something from the past. Like the micro elements in my shoes, there is an absorption at a molecular level that instantly makes you a part of the moment or thing — something best contemplated over the whiskey after the red wine at midnight in front of a fire. The conversation with the immaculate and beautiful curator of the establishment began with the usual salutations and the enquiry as to the state of business in the trading of items of the past. “Why someone would buy a chair in Tasmania to send to Sydney is beyond me” was one of the sentences shared. “The cost of freight is ridiculous”. “I am new to the city, having been in small towns mostly”. When I eventually picked up the wallet the sliding door opened.

The touch of soft leather bending in your hand speaks of quality. The size of the wallet dictates that this was to be stored inside your coat pocket. Instantly transported back to early last millennium by feel alone. “You don’t see stitching like that anymore” is the comment from the observing curator. The latch is old metal riveted to the leather by hands and machine not using electricity. There are no labels or embossed production marks — this wallet was made by someone for someone. It is personal. I imagine taking this wallet out of my blazer at Raffles in Singapore and passing over currency for a Singapore Sling over the wooden bar. Perhaps settling an account at the East India Club in London for a stay whilst meeting a ship owner. A casual glance by a stranger seeing the wallet and a conversation beginning around the respect for quality of the past as opposed to the mass produced of the present. Thoughts conjured in a millisecond and gone, but stored in some biological and electrical cabinet in the mind.

The latch mechanism to open the wallet has been copied now. There is a machine in China that you feed metal components into and the program that drives the belts and presses moves them through a faultless process that can make two hundred and fifty latches an hour. These are then fed into another machine that positions the latch onto leather that is pressed, cut and artificially conditioned to replicate the “vintage” look. The final result is a wallet that has a genetically modified cotton label stitched into the lining with instructions on how to care for your wallet and a declaration of the chemicals used. It is positioned onto a conveyor belt and packed into cardboard cartons and dispatched to shops in New York and London where it is displayed on a glass cabinet in a window next to a picture of a celebrity paying for a vodka at an airport wearing a watch. Sorry, that is what it is now. Opening the latch on this wallet however brings a feeling of respect. Someone has put the tiny spring that moves the metal that fastens the wallet closed by hand. The rivets holding the latch to the wallet have been punched through the leather by hand. Someone has carefully bent the metal of the latch to the contours of the leather to avoid there being anything sharp to catch the material of the coat jacket. The attaching of the latch to the leather is a work of art in itself.

A latch, a simple but respected mechanism that opens something. Open something it did. Inside the wallet, in one of the compartments, folded once evenly, was an identity card of the owner of the wallet from 1944 (let’s say Bob). In another compartment, folded once and once again — evenly and exactly — was a letter from a friend to the owner. On a specially designed part of the wallet, a board with scores from tennis matches from 1947 were written. A moment of history frozen in time. 71 years passed from the last known moment that the wallet was used until the day I opened this wallet. A time capsule. I’ll take it please. “I hope that you use the wallet as a respect for the person in the letter” said the curator of the establishment. No, I said — I am going to find the owner or their relatives and give it back.

The identity card had the name of the Bob, his address, the identity number and issue stamp in Launceston. It was dated 31st of May 1944. Six days later Allied forces landed in Normandy during World War II. The date on the tennis scores was the 25th of October 1947. The address was the name of a property in Campbell Town. Under the Launceston City Council building there is a room with archives. Walking to the council building I bypassed what I expected would be a “form filling in” exercise and snuck down the back stairs that can be accessed by a door beside the Mayors office (it looks like a cleaning cupboard). The room at the bottom of the staircase is not locked as the key has been lost decades ago and the wooden door originally from the early 1800’s, made of Huon Pine, set amongst the convict built sandstone entrance is easily opened, the creaking of the hinges complements the workmanship of the wallet. The rooms below are known by a lot of people, but rarely are they accessed — the romance of searching hand written records is a thing of the past. The records are kept on wooden shelves and whilst electric light is used to see the labels on the outside of the record books, the ambience is still present and it is easy to imagine searching by candle light. Looking at the identity card it soon becomes obvious that the numbering system on the record books match the system of the cards — they were efficient back then. T5 / M30 / 14709. Found on the third shelf in the fourth row. The identity card and the records match exactly and I feel a moment of satisfaction, not unlike that of finding the wallet in the first place…….is what I would have liked to have done, but I actually dropped an email to a friend that knows farming folk in Campbell Town and asked “do you know this bloke or any of his relatives”. In no more than five minutes I had Bob’s son’s names and a phone number by return. Such is Tasmania and the power of the internet!

“Hello, this may be a little strange, but are you the son of Bob?”. The answer is yes and for Tony a sliding door opens to his father’s past — a door that he did not know existed. His father passed away in 2012 and yes he would love to have his wallet. Plans are made to drive out to the country the next day and the world spins a little smoother as result. There are smiles on faces.

How does a wallet containing an identity card, a letter and tennis scores just disappear for over 70 years? What happened at an exact moment of time that this wallet just went into suspended animation? For 24 hours myself and those around me contemplated what this event could have been. It could not have been lost — in 1947 Tasmania was a smaller place then that it is now — someone knew someone who knew Bob. It could have been stolen, but why keep the letter, tennis scores and identity card immaculately in place?

We left the city on a Saturday afternoon to deliver the wallet to Tony. Driving through country towns and back roads through the Tasmanian countryside there are pockets of well preserved Tasmania 1940’s and earlier. Spotting groups of established deciduous trees are a giveaway and passing these old estates I cannot help but wonder if the Bob used to come up here from time to time. Arriving at Tony and Joanne’s home we met at the front and shook hands — Tony’s eyes alight with wonder. I look at some of the old buildings on the farm and point out one that looks like an old school hall. Tony tells me that building was transported there from Strahan on the West Coast of Tasmania and that it is made of celery top pine entirely — another story going begging. Joanne (Tony’s wife) gifts a pot with an iris in it and tells us the story of how Bob used to collect these iris flowers from the river side from the property where he lived when courting Tony’s mother. I hand the wallet over to Tony and we go inside where Joanne has made scones with jam and cream and a pot of tea. We sit and talk about the history of the family. Bob was a champion tennis player and committed sportsman before realising his need to commit to the family farm. We work out he was 15 when he last recorded tennis scores in the wallet. The history of the property was discussed and a mystery of a missing original painting of Mathew Flinders perhaps acquired by a cleaner evoked further unsolved events of the past. The letter inside the wallet is read and furrowed brows try to force memories of names used in the letter against locations and a time now a distant memory. One relative remains from those days, Tony’s aunt, the youngest of that generation. Plans are made by Tony and Joanne to visit Bob’s sister to try and delve deeper into the mystery of the wallet and the time. More questions than answers, but a part of a fathers life returned to its rightful place.

I am off to Singapore with the family in three weeks. In another mind set, I could have easily removed the identity card, the letter and the tennis scores, replaced them with my plastic drivers license and ever present lucky gum leaf card and used the word “antique” when the bartender remarked on the uniqueness of my wallet whilst paying for the two Singapore Slings that will definitely be consumed. Sliding doors. The good news is that when I walk through those doors, my shoes will no longer have a tear in the sole and my other soul will be happier for returning Bob’s wallet 70 years after it went missing.


Brett Charlton

Written by

I live at the bottom of the planet (Tasmania). Every now and again I venture off…... I like writing about it. You can read about it.

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