A letter is delivered 100 years late: it was sent in 1916
Sending letters is a custom that is in decline given all the new messaging technology along with the advent of the internet. Today, a click is enough to be able to communicate with someone, and we no longer have to wait days and days for an answer to arrive in the mail. Once upon a time, however, there were no e-mails and ordinary mail was certainly one of the main means of communication. Having said that, errors could delay the delivery of a letter or package, and this is exactly what the story we want to tell you today is about. A man got a very special letter in his mailbox: it was sent in 1916 and arrived, let's say, a little late!
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Finlay Glen, 27-year-old man lives in a block of flats in Hamlet Road, Crystal Palace, London, received a strange letter one fine day. The envelope was dated "6 February 16" which Finlay believed was 2016. After a while, the young man realized that the letter must have been sent in 1916 as the stamp clearly bore the portrait of George V, who had reigned in the United Kingdom from 1910 to 1936. Finlay was curious to open the letter and with the help of his girlfriend and other specialists, he was able to trace the sender.
The letter, which arrived in 2021, is addressed to a Mrs Oswald Marsh, who was the wife of a wealthy magnate. The letter begins as follows: "My dear Katie, will you help me? I am quite ashamed of myself after what I did at the club." The rest of the letter is hard to decipher, but it is signed by someone named Christabel, who is believed to be the mother of Mrs Oswald Marsh.
Public Domain Pictures / Not the actual photo
Stephen Oxford of the Norwood Society examined the letter and, being a historian, provided this account: "Oswald was a very successful Norwood businessman, a stock dealer who owned a number of houses in the area. I was amazed and delighted to be able to examine this letter and was thrilled to find out more about Oswald Marsh and what he was up to just down the road 100 years ago."
It's certainly fascinating to come face to face with the past in a tangible way, don't you think?
