The card had been posted from Sydney to a house in Westgate, near Canterbury, in south-west England on August 27, 1981, and arrived this month.<\/p>\n
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The card was posted from Sydney in 1981 to a house in England\u2019s south-west.<\/span><\/p>\n Samantha Williams, who now lives at the address in Elm Grove, said circumstances surrounding the postcard\u2019s backstory, first reported by the BBC, remain a mystery. Williams said one of her children initially thought it was a Christmas card after picking it up.<\/p>\n Signed off by a man called Gerry, the postcard features a depiction of the Sydney Opera House, which at that time was less than 10 years old.<\/p>\n \u201cIt 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Gerry, who gave his address as 1 Dawes Point, Sydney, 2000 appears to have had his own problems with receiving mail, telling his mate Padge that he\u2019d only just read correspondence from him dated May 8 \u2013 more than three months earlier.<\/p>\n The postcard was addressed to Steve Padgett and included a handwritten message from \u201cGerry\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSorry to have not been in touch, but what can you say about colonial practices!\u201d he wrote, saying he was having a brilliant time and promised to write in detail the next day.<\/p>\n Williams said she\u2019d love to find the man it was addressed to and give it to him.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s only got a 35\u00a2 stamp on it, so maybe it\u2019s been stuck at a sorting office in Australia or in the UK for more than 40 years,\u201d she said. \u201cThey were obviously good friends, and it may mean a lot to him.\u201d<\/p>\n Britain\u2019s troubled mail service, Royal Mail, has faced fierce backlash for delays and lost post amid mass strikes during the past 12 months.<\/p>\n In February, a flat in south London received a letter addressed to a previous tenant written in 1916, more than a century on, surprising the residence\u2019s owner.<\/p>\n The letter, with a stamp bearing George V\u2019s head, was addressed to Katie Marsh, who was married to stamp dealer Oswald Marsh and was sent by her friend Christabel Mennell, the daughter of wealthy local tea merchant Henry Tuke Mennell, during the height of the First World War.<\/p>\n In the letter, Mennell stated she felt \u201cquite ashamed of myself after saying what I did\u201d, and that she had been feeling \u201cmiserable here with a very heavy cold\u201d.<\/p>\n A Royal Mail spokeswoman said it was difficult to speculate what may have happened with the postcard from Australia.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is likely that it was put back into the postal system by someone recently, rather than it being lost or stuck somewhere,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cRoyal 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Get a note directly from our foreign <\/i><\/b>correspondents <\/i><\/b>on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. <\/i><\/b>Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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