Christmas postcard delivered 121 years after being mailed

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As Canadian poet laureate Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip famously sang, “You are ahead by a century.”

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He certainly wasn’t singing about an undelivered postcard that finally arrived some 121 years after it was first sent off by mail.

The Christmas-themed card was recently delivered to Swansea Building Society’s Cradock St. branch in the U.K. after a mere 12-decade delay.

The postcard was originally sent in 1903.

According to the BBC, staff said they were looking for the relatives of a Miss Lydia Davies, who previously lived at the address and who the card was addressed to, with the hope of reuniting them with it.

The postcard is written by a man named Ewart, who while addressing “L” said he was “so sorry” that he couldn’t pick up a “pair” of an unknown item.

“I am so sorry, but I hope you are enjoying yourself at home,” he added, per the BBC.

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The man went on to say that he had about 10 shillings “in pocket money, not counting the train fare, so I am doing alright.” He ended the note by urging Lydia to “remember me to (Mssrs) Gilbert and John, with love to all.”

Swansea Building Society marketing and communications officer Henry Darby said he was sorting through mail when the postcard dropped out. He said he found limited information about the intended recipient online.

“So we thought we’d pop it on our social media and thought maybe someone locally may be connected to her, a few generations down,” he said.

Andrew Dully, from West Glamorgan Archives, has established that a John F. Davies was the head of the household at the address, where he lived with his wife Maria and six children.

“The oldest of them was Lydia. She would have been 16 when this postcard was sent,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Royal Mail said: “It is likely that this postcard was put back into our system rather than being lost in the post for over a century.

“When an item is in our system, we are under obligation to deliver it to the correct address.”

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