‘Royal Mail lost my mum’s ashes in the post’

A woman has been left upset and unsure where to turn after Royal Mail lost some of her mother’s ashes in the post. Kayleigh Evans’s mother Christine Evans died in December 2021 aged 62 after catching coronavirus.

As a way to honour her, Kayleigh, from Swansea, decided to encase some of the ashes in a silver memorial pendant as a gift to her auntie – Christine’s only sister. However, despite posting the necklace from Swansea to Colchester where Michelle her aunt lives on September 21, the necklace never arrived.

Despite contacting Royal Mail, Kayleigh claims the postal service told her they don’t know the whereabouts of the necklace. Kayleigh says the whole experience has left the family “mortified” and they are “devastated” about losing the sentimental item.

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“Royal Mail hasn’t got a clue where the necklace and the ashes are,” said Kayleigh. “They keep saying they just can’t find it. Obviously, my auntie is mortified. She’s devastated. She was saying ‘that’s my sister Kayleigh!’, but what can I do?”

Kayleigh decided to get some of the ashes encased in the pendant which read “your wings sister were ready but your heart was not” as a gift for her mother’s only sibling to have some of the ashes near her. She claims she posted it first class on September 21, however, as of October 25 – and countless phone calls with Royal Mail – the package still hasn’t been located.

“They’ve [Royal Mail] just said they don’t know where it is. They blamed it on the strike first of all, I just really don’t know. It’s just been lost. They’ve said there’s nothing they can do.”

The missing item has caused a lot of emotional distress for the family. Kayleigh said: “It’s not even about the necklace, part of my mother is floating around somewhere. It’s not nice. It’s heart breaking, it’s weird really.

“It’s her sister more than anything that I’m upset about. When I sent it off to her she was saying ‘thank you do much’ and she was so pleased, and now she’s just devastated.”

Kayleigh said they expected the small parcel to be delivered within days, however nobody can locate it. She said: “When I rang and said it should be there by now, Royal Mail just said it’s in a postal station somewhere. We’re all devastated.”

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “We are very sorry for the distress experienced by our customer in relation to this delivery. We understand the deep emotional significance of this item, and extend our deepest sympathies. We plan to contact our customer to apologise, gather further information and discuss next steps. Unfortunately it appears that this item was sent using a service which does not offer tracking and this makes it harder for us to locate it within our systems. The tracking options and level of compensation cover vary according to which delivery product is chosen, so we urge all customers to carefully consider which product is best when sending highly significant items. Information on our different delivery products is at: https://www.royalmail.com/sending/uk.”

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