UPDATE DAY
A letter written in February 1916 has finally arrived in the mail more than 100 years after it was written.
The envelope, stamped with a stamp bearing the likeness of King George V, the grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II, was deposited at the London apartment in Finlay Glen in 2021.
“We were surprised to see that it was kept for more than 100 years”, confided the 27-year-old man at the BBC. The British Postal Service says it “does not understand what happened”.
The letter was posted two years before the introduction of World War I rationing. King George V had been on the throne for five years.
If opening someone else's mail is a crime in the UK, Finlay Glen didn't hold it against him , since he opened the envelope after two years of waiting. “I apologize if I have committed a crime,” he adds.
The letter was addressed to a certain Katie, the wife of Oswald Marsh, an entrepreneur who made a fortune printing stamps. It was signed by Christabel Mennel, the daughter of a wealthy tea merchant. She mentions that “she is ashamed of what she said” and that she feels “miserable here with a very bad cold”.
“We are happy to see the fascination of the public for the story of that 1916 letter, a British postal official said. Unfortunately, we have no information about what happened.”
Based on information from the < em>BBC