Postcard from the past is a surprise for Finchingfield family | Great Dunmow & Stansted Airport News

Jim Green, who wrote the postcard, with his brother Christopher. Picture: ARCHANT

Jim Green, 66, visited Benidorm in September 1991 with friends when he was 39 and scribbled a quick message on a postcard, intending to let his parents know he had arrived.

But the postcard never made it home to Essex until Jim and his family were given a shock when it landed on the doormat last Thursday morning (October 17).

Jim now lives at the house which belonged to his parents, in Kempe Road, with his brother Christopher and Christopher’s partner Anna Dollimore.

Speaking to the Broadcast, he said: “I am just amazed, I couldn’t figure it out, how it could be delayed for so long.”

Jim Green with the postcard he sent to his parents 28 years ago. Picture: ARCHANT

The letter, dated September 12, 1991, reads: “To Mum and Dad. Had a good flight over. Everything’s ok. Good hotel, weather etc. Weather has been very hot. Hope cats are ok. Must close now, love Jim.”

The postcard arrived on Thursday morning, whilst Christopher, 61, was watching TV.

“I went and picked up the mail and thought ‘blimey, who is in Benidorm?’ When I saw the date on it I thought ‘this can’t be right, it has been 28 years’,” Christopher said.

Jim’s mother, Winifred, died five years ago and his father, Christopher, died in 1997. “Dad would have said ‘well, that is the post for you’,” Christopher joked, when asked what their parents would have thought of the unexpected delivery.

The cats mentioned in the postcard were called Blacky and Tabby and both died more than 20 years ago. “One was black and the other was a tabby, so they were easy names, they were lovely animals,” said Jim, a painter and decorator.

Generations of Jim’s family have lived in Finchingfield, going back as far as the mid-1800s. Jim’s parents never travelled abroad and instead took their children on days to places such as Clacton or Maldon.

“They always went to the seaside,” Anna said. “The postcard was giving her a sight of what Benidorm looked like,” she added.

Jim, who has lived in Kempe Road all his life, does not remember writing the postcard but he does remember the holiday.

He said: “You always do the postcard at the start of the trip and write ‘great holiday, great food’, but in actual fact, the food was okay, but our hotel room was on one of the higher floors and for quite a few days we weren’t getting any hot water. I went down and got bottled water and had to wash with that. Then one day, we went down the road and had strawberries and cream and we all came back with stomach bugs.”

Twenty-eight years later, the postcard, like most, found its way to its destination and now sits on a mantle piece next to a Victorian clock owned by Jim’s grandfather.

A spokesman for Royal Mail said: “It is difficult to speculate what may have happened to this item of mail, but it is likely that it was put back into the postal system by someone recently, rather than it being lost or stuck somewhere. Royal Mail regularly checks all its delivery offices and clears its processing machines daily. Once an item is in the postal system then it will be delivered to the address on the card.”