Did Royal Mail really just deliver a letter posted 107 years ago?

[Chris Phillips]

That seems to be the implication of this news report, including comments from Royal Mail such as "Incidents like this happen very occasionally":

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64647166

Surely this is more likely to have been a practical joke on someone's part?

[R. J. Palmer]

That seems to be the implication of this news report, including comments from Royal Mail such as "Incidents like this happen very occasionally":

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64647166

Surely this is more likely to have been a practical joke on someone's part?

When I was a child, my family received the customary Christmas card from my great uncle back in North Dakota. The only problem is that he had died two years earlier.

(And he had been a Postmaster, by the way).

The theory was that someone had been cleaning up at the Post Office and had found some letters that had fallen behind a counter or a maybe a tattered post bag that had been taken out of service but hadn’t been fully emptied.

These stories used to appear on a fairly regular basis in the U.S. “Woman receives love letter after 45 years, etc.” but then our mail service is questionable at times. There were also occasional stories about postmen who were found to have been hoarding bags of mail at their private residences. I have hopes that that rare book I ordered 15 years ago from the UK may still someday arrive.

[Chris Phillips]

When I was a child, my family received the customary Christmas card from my great uncle back in North Dakota. The only problem is that he had died two years earlier.

(And he had been a Postmaster, by the way).

The theory was that someone had been cleaning up at the Post Office and had found some letters that had fallen behind a counter or a maybe a tattered post bag that had been taken out of service but hadn’t been fully emptied.

These stories used to appear on a fairly regular basis in the U.S. “Woman receives love letter after 45 years, etc.” but then our mail service is questionable at times. There were also occasional stories about postmen who were found to have been hoarding bags of mail at their private residences. I have hopes that that rare book I ordered 15 years ago from the UK may still someday arrive.

Maybe that letter from Anderson to Swanson about the Seaside Home identification will turn up soon ...