A delightful coincidence brought a postcard back to its owner nearly 60 years after he sent it.
This is totally a true story! It happened to my Dad 🙂
Back in 1961, as his plane prepared to descend into Russia, 20 year old David Jones hastily jotted a postcard to his parents back in the London district of Battersea. “Russia looks a lot like England, except the roads are straighter,” he wrote, describing his first ever plane trip.
The picture on the postcard depicted the plane David was a passenger on as he prepared alongside his fellow company members to take part in the Royal Ballet’s Tour of Russia. A young member of the company, this was was the first of several overseas tours he made, including to America and Europe, before he left the stage to take up carpentry and stagecraft.
“When I got home from that trip, Mum had the postcard. I pinned it to the ceiling of my attic bedroom, along with many others sent by travelling dancers. It disappeared after a few years and I never thought about it again.”
David’s travels brought him to Australia in 1971, where he settled, raised a family and taught stagecraft at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts. After retiring, David and his wife relocated to the Northern Beaches to be closer to his daughter.
This September, he had a surprising message from his brother Raymond back in the UK.
“Raymond said a friend of his had been browsing through some collectibles and came across an old postcard. He saw the name Jones plus the Battersea address and remembered Raymond had invited him to our home there in the sixties. When Raymond read the postcard, he immediately recognised the handwriting as mine.”
Neither David nor his brother have any idea how the postcard ended up on a collectibles stall in Harrogate, Yorkshire. “After my father passed away in 1984, my mother disposed of his postcard collection and relocated to Wales. We can only assume the card was amongst the collection.”
David’s postcard has now been returned to sender, 58 years after he sent it. “I was thrilled to see the card. It is such a small thing, yet a very strong link to a happy time in my life.”
For now, David has put the postcard in a safe spot. “I won’t lose it track of it again!”
