A freelance journalist contacted Battlefords Publishing the other day, not to try to sell us a story, but to offer us a free story with a North Battleford connection because it might help him reach out to a woman he met recently on a train in Switzerland.
Here is former journalist/editor Tom Douglas’s story:
I was on a junket in early December to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the death of Charlie Chaplin at his estate in Corsier-sur-Vevey on Christmas Day 1977. Heading by train to Zurich to catch my flight home to Canada, I started chatting with a woman sitting opposite me. Unfortunately, I never got her name but she did mention that she had spent some time in North Battleford as a nanny 35 years ago. We had a pleasant talk before she got off at the downtown Zurich train stop while I was continuing on to the airport stop. Just before the train pulled out, I noticed she had left a small white paper bag on the floor by her seat. I grabbed it and dashed after her but she had disappeared into the crowd and the train started to pull out of the station.
I looked in the paper bag and saw two small white boxes decorated with Christmas angels. I figure these were gifts for someone she was visiting in Zurich. There was a receipt for the gifts in the bag but the woman had paid cash so there was no record of her name or credit card number that might have helped the chocolate shop locate her.
When I checked in to the Radisson Blu hotel at Zurich airport where I was staying until the flight next day, I asked the concierge if she would telephone the Bern chocolate shop in case the woman was a regular customer that the store clerk might have recognized. Since the woman was in Zurich, I thought she might call the shop and find out that the parcel was waiting for her at the hotel.
When I checked out the next day, I was handed the small white bag. No one had called the chocolate shop so the hotel said I might as well keep the gifts. I brought them home with me but I wouldn't feel right about eating the chocolate so I gave it to the husband of a woman who is dying in hospital here in Oakville, Ont., and might not live to see Christmas.
The writer hoped that if the News-Optimist/Regional Optimist published his story, someone might remember the woman when she was living in this community. The only piece of information he has about her is that she lives in the small community of Thun in Switzerland. He would like her to know that her gifts were used in a good cause.
If you have information you would like to share with Tom Douglas, please email [email protected].
The blog post about his Swiss tour is at the following address: http://tomdouglas.typepad.com/tom_douglas/christmas-with-the-chaplins/
