It is going to be hard to complain about late mail again after reading this story!
A postcard sent from Australia has finally arrived at its destination in England — just 42 years later, according to reports.
The postcard was sent from Sydney on Aug. 27, 1981, but arrived at its intended destination — a house in Westgate, near Canterbury in southwest England — in December 2023, according to The New York Post.
However, in a twist, the people who the card was intended for do not live at the address in England any longer, according to reports.
The home’s current occupant, Samantha Williams, told BBC that the postcard is "a mystery.”
"We would love to find the man it was addressed to and give it to him," she told the outlet. "They were obviously good friends and it may mean a lot to him."
The postcard was addressed to Steve Padgett and included a handwritten message from "Gerry,” according to BBC.
"It had been sent from a man called Gerry in Sydney and addressed to Steve Padgett or Padge, who we believe lived here with his parents in the 1980s," Williams told BBC.
Williams said that the postcard features a picture of the world-famous Sydney Opera House and "it's only got a 32 cent stamp on it, so maybe it's been stuck at a sorting office in Australia or in the UK for more than 40 years."
The U.K.’s A Royal Mail did comment on the matter to BBC and a spokeswoman 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."
