Woman outraged as Halloween display vanishes until ’embarrassed’ mum comes forward

A prolific yarn bomber has slated “selfish” thieves who stole her latest creation, a Halloween-themed postbox topper.

Rachel Williamson, a retired police officer from Rhyl, Denbighshire, said the culprits had robbed others of the “chance to be cheered up” in the run-up to October 31.

The crochet creation took three days to make and was on display for 12 days before disappearing from St Margaret’s Drive, opposite Rhyl’s Shell garage, on Saturday night.

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Since North Wales Police began investigating the theft, however, it has been returned by an “embarrassed” mum of two teens.

In the past 18 months Rachel, her twin Ruth and mum Thelma have made more than 100 postbox toppers for Rhyl and surrounding communities.

“Sadly, this wasn’t the first one to go missing and it won’t be the last,” said Rachel, 58.

“Some have been stolen, others have been damaged.

“Whoever took it was incredibly selfish.

“If they were desperate to have it, they need only have asked and we would have given it to them.”

On Tuesday afternoon Rachel popped back to the postbox – and was stunned to see the topper had reappeared.

When she called at the nearby best-one shop, she was told it had been returned by a mother of two teenagers.

“Apparently she was very apologetic and embarrassed after finding it at her home,” said Rachel.

Yarn bombing began long before Covid but the family’s imaginative post box toppers quickly sparked a new trend across Britain.

The idea for them came in April 2020 when Rachel called at the chemists to collect her mother’s prescription.

“There was a long, socially-distanced queue and everyone looked so miserable,” she recalled.

“So I decided to return home and knit a sparkly topper for a nearby postbox to cheer people up.”

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Having retired from the police, the toppers helped Rachel’s “restore my faith in human nature”, she said.

The trio’s creations are now in demand more than ever. Conwy hospice Tŷ Gobaith has asked for one for its Santa run fundraiser in Rhyl in December, and a Remembrance Day topper has been commissioned for a postbox in Hartlepool.

Last year Rachel and Thelma knitted Ant and Dec for an I’m A Celebrity topper, which now lies in Gwylch Castle, Abergele, where the series is currently filmed.

As they couldn’t place it on an Abergele postbox, due to Covid curbs, they’ve now been asked to make another in time for the 2021 series. It will feature a series of bugs.

For Halloween, they created two toppers. One, depicts a drunken witch slamming into a postbox on Rhyl prom, by Old Golf Road.

“This is awesome,” said one woman on Facebook. “I just passed this but my driver wouldn’t turn around for me to photograph it.”

The other Halloween topper became the subject of police inquiries – and it appears an appeal for its return fell on fertile ground.

On Sunday, officers from the NWP Denbighshire Coastal and Abergele team said: “If you know who has it, or where it may be, please put it back.

“The ladies that make these do them for the community and they have been a great addition to the area over the last year or so.

“We will be conducting some CCTV inquiries in the area to see if we can locate the person responsible.”

Rachel said the family had been devastated by the topper’s theft – but they were determined to carry on.

She said: “It takes us many hours to make the toppers.

“At the start I became disheartened when they started disappearing or getting damaged, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the good outweighs the bad.

“It only takes one person to steal them but thousands of people will enjoy them.”

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