Man finally receives letter 27 years after it was sent

With the recent postal strikes in the UK, a lot of us have been receiving our Christmas post much later than we would have liked to.

But we can at least take comfort in the knowledge that we're not this man, who finally received a letter that was sent a whopping 27 years ago.

John Rainbow, 60, received the letter - from the last century - on Friday, 13 January, as reported by the Hexham Courant.

But when he looked at the postage stamp, he likely never expected it to be as old as it was, and it dated all the way back to 1995.

"It was for a previous resident of the house, they must've lived here at least 12 to 15 years ago," he said.

"We opened the letter, had a look at it and thought 'blimey, this is a bit strange', then we saw the date on the letter which was August 3, 1995, and couldn't understand how it's suddenly just arrived."

As revealed by the stamp, the letter was posted from Bridgwater in Somerset way back in the summer of 1995.

John Rainbow

"On the back, it's got an Alnwick 1995 postage stamp. The original one is Bridgwater, Somerset from 1995 but there's one on the back from the day after and that says Alnwick 1995.

"It's in perfect condition, it's not like it's been lying around, it just looks old."

John, who moved into the property in 2015, let curiosity get the better of him and opened the letter, which he revealed was about a family going back to the 1880s, childhood memories, and contained information about how its writer's children had grown up.

"It's very strange, we have no connection to the person that was here," he said before explaining that the house was previously occupied by an elderly woman.

"I think she was an old lady when she was here," he said. "Our neighbours knew her."

Mrs Valerie Jarvis-Read, who the letter was addressed to, lived in the home until 2010, and it was sold multiple times after that until John moved in.

He speculated that she passed away and that's why the house was sold.

John Rainbow

Tina Robinson, a neighbour, revealed that Valerie was a navigator whose husband was a member of the Forces in Le Mans at some point in the early 20th century.

"There were photos in the house of her husband shaking hands with Prince Philip, but I can't remember why," she said.

"It would be nice to know the person who sent the letter has some relatives and for them to know it's finally arrived," John added.

A Royal Mail spokesperson told the Hexham Courant: "Incidents like this happen very occasionally, and we are uncertain what happened to cause this incident in this instance.

"We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused."

LADbible has reached out to the Royal Mail for further comment.