Parcel arrives - after 27 years
Royal Mail took nearly three decades to deliver a woman's exam certificates just six miles.
Gill Smeathers received the package postmarked 4 November 1982, 27 years three months and two days overdue, reports the Daily Telegraph.
It contained four secretarial certificates issued to her daughter Tracy, who now lives in Canada, from a course she took at Kettering Technical College.
The cylindrical tube, still complete with 12.5p stamp, had travelled from Kettering to her home in Wellingborough, Northants.
Mrs Smeathers, a retired office worker, said: "I knew instantly when I saw the name of the college what it was.
"Tracy and I had a good laugh about it when I told her, but I'm not sending it to her. I'm keeping hold of it this time.
"Tracy thought I had received the certificates and I thought she had them so we never even realised they were missing.
"I'd love to know where it's been all these years. I can only think it must have fallen behind a cupboard and got lost."
Royal Mail believes that parcel was franked by the original sender and never posted. It has a more recent Milton Keynes postmark dated 15 February 2010.
