Valentine Goes to London

In my memory my Uncle Valentine was quite the glamorous individual. He had studied hard to become a dentist and by working assiduously had managed to buy his own surgery in the thriving suburb of Lane Cove in Sydney, Australia.

Some years later he sold his practice and with the proceeds of the sale he did what so many Australians did in the ‘60’s; he set out for the greener pastures of London, where he studied to become an orthodontist.

His life was now all about working, studying, and enjoying life as a handsome, jovial, young man about town!

With his studies completed and his new qualifications under his belt, Valentine decided to continue his studies to become a dental surgeon; after which he bought a dental clinic and then a second dental clinic.

With money coming into his bank at a great rate of knots he decided to open a Swiss Bank Account. And as he regarded privacy regarding his income to be paramount, he felt it necessary to arrange and open this offshore account.

At the time it may have seemed a great idea to dodge the British tax man but in the long run maybe not so much!

Well as luck would have it his ran out, and Valentine met with an early demise in his 40’s in 1965. By this time, he had qualified as a dentist, orthodontist, and a dr. of dentistry; owned two dental clinics and was thinking of marrying. His Mother was incredibly sad, his family back in Australia were bereft, his lady sad. And his executor was saddled with what seemed to be an insurmountable problem. Knowledge of a Swiss Bank Account but no Swiss Bank Account identification to be found – anywhere.

In fact, his desire for privacy had now backfired so effectively it put a stopper on his Mother back home in Australia receiving his money.

A trip to Valentine’s flat by his executor had yielded nothing. No information regarding that elusive numerical information; no sign of the nine numbers needed to access the account. No obvious strings of numbers. No hints. Nada, zilch, nothing. As this invasive search yielded nothing of use the next step took his executor to Valentine’s solicitor where for two days, they trolled through his parent’s birth dates, important dates of anything really that had occurred in his life, anything that could lead to those hard-to-find numbers surfacing that would allow the Swiss Bank Account to be accessed and the missing dollars released.

However, there was still no joy, no results. The search was abandoned, and the Swiss Bank in their role of neutrality, were once again the monetary winners in their requirement for their clients to enjoy utmost secrecy.

Secrets that were taken by so many to their graves, literally!

This requirement, coupled with their need for their clients to produce a string of numbers to gain access to the owner’s personal bank account to affect an “open sesame”, sealed the deal from both sides of the auditory fence.

And his identity and privacy were now so protected that not even the production of birth certificates, driver’s licenses or any other proof of identity were of any use; it had to be those elusive numbers!

Uncle Valentine’s family members sold the two London Dental clinics to the dentists who were already working there at a greatly reduced price; bargain rates – they were happy!

But nagging thoughts still abounded about those missing dollars in that old Swiss Bank Account.

Well, a couple of years later I, his God daughter Amelia, was given my Godfather Valentine’s little black book as a memento.

A memento I decided to go through to find out more about him. It was what appeared to be both a small diary, and telephone book.

I do remember that around this time the “Little Black Book” was the subject of many well-known films made infamous with promise of the release of its’ many secrets; names, addresses and of course the telephone numbers of the many beautiful blondes and brunettes, all supposedly waiting on tenterhooks for “that” phone call! Or so the gentlemen around town liked to think.

So, it was with love that I read through his book as I tried to make sense, understand if you will more about what had made him tick. It was hard to understand why his relatively young life had been snatched way so unceremoniously at a time when he should have been enjoying Life. His family were immensely proud of him for having worked so hard and achieved so much.

And now he was gone I thought wouldn’t it be great if I could restore his money to my loving great aunt, his bereaved mother. And then I thought what if this little black book somehow held the key to his inaccessible bank account in Switzerland. After all an exhaustive search elsewhere had revealed nothing.

Going through the little black phone book I began to see a pattern with the phone numbers. I noticed the varying lengths of the phone numbers entered; a lot to do with I thought country codes, regional and state numbers all prefacing the actual phone number.

Excitedly, I felt that I had maybe cracked a pathway to the missing code that could lead somewhere to the tracking down those missing dollars; it was an off chance that my theory could become fact. But then again what if I was barking up the wrong tree? Basically, I just needed to knuckle down and try and work it out.

The hard yards were stretching out in front of me.

I carefully went through the book, marking any numbers that seemed either too long or where the country numbers seemed familiar but had actual phone numbers listed that I would need to check. Maybe I was onto to something! An errant phone number hidden in this little black book, a number that could somehow contain the missing information.

Excitedly, I felt that I had possibly cracked a pathway to the missing numbers that could lead somewhere in our family quest of tracking down those missing dollars.

So many what-ifs? What if the number was disguised as an Australian/British/Swiss telephone number or even a clinic phone number? Any number of co-ordinations that I would need to phone to make connection with a human voice. And also to make sure I had ready answers to questions like “Has Valentine died? I thought he had returned home to Australia?”, “Who are You?” etc.

I anguished over how to cut down the workload. Reduce that and the strain of talking to all those questioning strangers.

Then I had a brain wave. I would check the country code for Switzerland; a light bulb moment one might say. So, to call Switzerland say from Britain one would need the British exit code (00), the country code for Switzerland (41) and then the swiss bank account access 9-digit phone number. Not of course, forgetting those area code/s.

With these thoughts in mind, I set about meticulously searching through the phone book looking for country codes, entry and exit from Switzerland, Australia, and England. Basically, I ignored the remaining numbers deciding to go only with the numbers that held some promise.

After pulling an all-nighter working through that informative little book from 8pm until the wee hours I felt that after this marathon effort most of the possibilities had indeed been narrowed down; all I needed to do now was make those phone calls to sort out which numbers were real, and which were fake.

It reminded me that the outcome from this hunt could result in some surprises - a little like those dead people found to be voting at the polls.

The cycle of life being outmaneuvered to throw would-be fraudsters off the scent!

But having a nose like a blood hound I just could not let go…

My travels through the phone book yielded little in the way of answers. I kept reading and ringing, reading, and ringing unsuccessfully. People answered so the string of numbers all dialed thus far were proving to be legitimate rendering my search almost obsolete.

That little black book, which I may say was indeed quite small in its’ circumference but enormous in its content, had been the source of headaches on a major scale. Indeed, I had spent so many hours going through the ephemera produced between the pages of the book in what was increasingly looking more like a vain exercise in futility that I was quite sure I was on a hiding to nothing; basically by this time a successful outcome seemingly pointless. But then just as I was dialing the last of those numbers, I had a moment of minute clarity when I saw what looked like a string of numbers that were so disparate it had to be something other than a legitimate phone number.

Eureka!! a moment never to be forgotten! The stuff of family legends.

And it was. I rang. No one answered. Dead air was the stern reply. Great. But was it what I needed for the bank? Were they the string of numbers required? There was however a total of 9 innocuous looking numbers after the prefixes and country codes were removed.

By this stage, my heart was thudding so loudly and so strongly I thought it was beating for Australia!

I telephoned Qantas to book a flight to the bank. Zurich here I come…

My quest was ending. Filled with both trepidation and fear I packed my gear, not forgetting Uncle Valentine’s little black book. I rang an Uber and made the longish trek out to Sydney airport. My flight, enjoyable as it was, seemed to go on forever; all that jostling, and checking of tickets as I wove in and out of airports on the way over seemed to make my trip seem longer than in essence it probably was. But as I was so consumed with impatience maybe my mental processes were hampered.

I had had the foresight to book into a wildly popular hotel called the Hotel Bristol Zurich, and I was looking forward to a hot shower and gorgeous meal in that order.

Flying has the means to make you feel so grubby and even a little smelly at the end of the day – why I do not know because it is not as if you are running, jogging, or even exerting yourself in any way as you sit cocooned in your little space sleeping, eating, reading, or watching inflight movies.

My chosen hotel was in the best spot as it was only 1.25ks from the City Centre, but unfortunately for my budget it had also proved to be incredibly expensive although to my joy, because I had pre-arranged this hotel, my flight was included in the price. I planned to stay there for one night only and then after my banking adventure I was going to hire a car to travel and eat my way around Switzerland, visiting little hamlets and townships. A marvelous plan but we all know what can happen to the plans of mice and men!

The next day the sun shone brightly through the windows and as I had a beautiful room with a little verandah just outside the bedroom windows, I ordered my breakfast to be brought up which I then took outside to eat. A great start to the day. Truly a harbinger of hope.

Breakfast over I got the directions from the doorman and walked across to the bank, my heart in my mouth. But having a positive attitude I thought if even this is all a furphy, a wild goose chase, I was enjoying my adventure and decided that whatever the outcome, life was good and to be enjoyed.

I got to the bank in what seemed record time. My feet were springing along as if they had a life of their own. The smartly clad doormen opened the giant glass doors to me as I were a person of wealth and repute – so nice. I was directed to the chap I needed to liaise with. He took me down to the vaults where I had to test my numbers theory.

I was in such a state of vacillation, internally dithering about my choice of numbers, decision making skills, and the potential for disappointment that it was making me feel sick, so sick I was casting around for a pot of some description should my stomach let me down! Maybe I had come all this way for nothing. Spent money I did not have! But in truth this was proving to be an adventure and the holiday of a lifetime while at the same time helping my beautiful great aunt retrieve her long-lost money.

Get a Grip I told myself! Well ever onward and upward.

I took a deep breath and got out my little black book, then with trepidation plugged the number sequence from the book into the coded lock on the outside of the bank’s black tin box. I pressed the last number of the sequence into the system and to my utter joy and wonder the lock opened, yielding its secrets to me. My Uncle Valentine’s money was there, just waiting to be released back into the family. Thousands upon thousands. $20,000.00 in crisp notes nestled cleanly in the box just waiting to be claimed. Woken up from their long, deep sleep in a Swiss bank these dollars would soon be put back into action by helping my widowed great aunt in both her sorrow and age-related penury.

Finally, despite the intervening years the little black book had given up its financial secrets that it had guarded so well over the years, providing a good financial back stop for my Great Aunt as indeed Uncle Valentine would have wanted. That is, if indeed he had not been quite so intent on secrecy.

author: a. a. gallagher

copyright February 2021

2437 words