Thomas Roy Cudmore and his Safe

Thanks to the generosity of Richard Homburg¹, Stars for Life Foundation has an activity and office space in the old Dave’s Cave space in the Confederation Court Mall (Dave’s Cave was the hip jeans-selling counterculture-cousin to the more traditional Henderson & Cudmore clothing store upstairs).

I’ve been a board member at Stars for Life for the past year, and we had a chance to hold our first board meeting in the new space yesterday; many present mentioned that the last time they’d been in the space was to buy Lees or GWGs.

On my way out I spotted, in an anteroom, a hulking silver safe. As I’m something of a student of the basement safes of Charlottetown, I snapped a photograph:

When I got back to my office, I emailed the photo to my friend Chris Cudmore, of the H&C Cudmores, and Chris confirmed it was their safe and, what’s more, gave me the combination to it:

Yes that is  the old H&C safe. I still remember the combination. TROY……the name of my grandfather Thomas Roy.

(Imagine the heist I could have pulled off if I’d put two and two together and figured this out on my own in the early 1990!)

Of course the first thing I did upon receiving this email was to go back to Dave’s Cave to try this out.

Sure enough, the dial on the safe was alphabetical rather than numeric:

Unfortunately, upon opening the safe I found that the business end of it had been removed, no doubt as a safety measure to avoid people without the TROY getting themselves locked inside it:

It remains, however, a hulking thing of beauty.

Perhaps you’d like to see it for yourself? Why not take the opportunity to make a generous donation to Stars for Life! Just drop off your cheque next time you see the Dave’s Cave door open. I’m sure whoever helps you would be happy to let you give the door a heave.

1. I never expected to be typing this sentence in this space.