The Suitcase

Fashioned from the aluminum skin of a Hawker Hurricane, the suitcase was sent home from England in April 1946. Uncle Harry had stayed on after the war with the 3rd Canadian Storage and Kit Disposal Unit. How he got there after going overseas with the 10th Field Battery, 1st Division in 1939 is a convoluted story that doesn’t belong here.

Some time in early 1946 Uncle Harry (a Captain by then) asked one of the personal in the unit if he could make a sturdy suitcase for use when he finally got his ticket home. How the skin from a Hurricane was found is unknown, suffice it has a story to tell also.

Harry came home in the Spring of ‘46, the suitcase in hand with other crates to follow. Unpacked, it went into the basement on Maple Street until his untimely death in 1948. I don’t know when I first noticed it in our house; it just seemed to be always there. Probably dad used it for a trip north in 1949 or ‘50. It then sat quietly in our house for years. Alone, and with its memories. Inert but somehow alive.

In the early 60’s I joined the navy. In ‘62 or ‘63 I needed some ‘stuff’ sent down to me so my dad said he would find something to put everything in and send it down by rail. Several weeks later the suitcase arrived at the Fleet Mail Office in Halifax. I brought it aboard ship, emptied it, then put it in storage with my kit bag in one of the vacant ammunition lockers. The suitcase sailed many a mile with me but didn’t see the light of day until I was getting my kit together for my draft to the shore base, HMCS Stadacona, and my release.

Jammed full of my civvie clothes, some souvenirs and a bottle of Woods Old Navy rum, the suitcase was placed on the baggage car and made its way to St.Catharines. I used it once in a while over the years but soon nylon flight bags made the suitcase redundant and for the past thirty or more years it has sat in a closet, travelling only when we moved from house to house and province to province. Always quiet but full of tales.

I am going down to Halifax on Wednesday to see my oldest grandson who is in the navy. I have a few things to drag along so I thought, “It is time for the old suitcase to have another adventure,” and with that I will jam it full of ‘stuff’, and deliver it to its newest keeper.

My friend Pat was by the other day so I told him the story of the suitcase. He looked at me and said, “Jimmy, if that thing could only talk. It has been sitting idle for all these years with so many stories to tell and now it will have another one.” Who knows where this carefree suitcase will be in another 60 or so years. And what tales it could tell!