Fifty years after they were sent, two postcards arrived at my home in Kent.
The deliveries arrived from Scotland and Denmark earlier this week via Steve Senior’s post in Lenham, near Maidstone.
Steve initially ignored the first postcard addressed to Mrs. Freeman because he “didn’t recognize her name.”
When he checked his watch the next morning, he discovered that the message had been sent more than half a century ago.
A 60-year-old man said: “I thought it was handwritten and a little old-fashioned, but who sends postcards these days?”
mpu1
“I put it aside and forgot about it all.
“When I picked it up again and looked at it more closely, I realized it was a four-and-a-half pence stamp.”
An internet search reveals that the price is for a shipment shipped in 1974, meaning it took 50 years to get from the north of Scotland to Kent.
The first postcard is from a man named Richard and is addressed to Mrs. Freeman.
In the text, he talks about how he was camping and about to go on a hike.
The receiver added: “I’m going to ask if anyone in the neighborhood knows Mrs. Freeman, but I haven’t seen her in three years, and I’ve never met anyone who’s lived here that long.
“That’s a good story. Why did it take 50 years to get here? Who are Richard and Mrs. Freeman? Where have they been since then?”
Steve moved to the Platts Heath property three years ago and has never held another similar position.
mpu2
He was shocked the next morning to find that a second card, also sent in 1974, had arrived in the mail from Denmark.
Steve imagines they must have been lost at some post office. He joked that “postal mail is slow to arrive everywhere, but first-class stamps take 50 years.”
Both stamps were recently issued and are marked with National Holocaust Remembrance Day.
A Tonbridge stamp collector agreed that the card was supposed to have been sent in 1974 but was stamped in 2024.
Peter O’Keeffe said they could have been “stuck at the bottom of the mailbag”.
However, he thinks it’s likely that “someone just found it interesting and put it back in the mailbox” recently.
Furthermore, he added: “I have no idea why they put these in the mailbox. Very often the post office doesn’t notice these things.”
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “Incidents like this are extremely rare and we are at a loss as to how these postcards came to appear on our systems after so many years. I’m certainly interested.
“Upon discovery, it was our duty to deliver them to that address.”