Talk about snail mail! But better late than never for Keith

A man found out why written post is called ‘snail-mail’ these days when he received a Christmas card sent nearly six years ago.

Keith Webber, from Ottery St Mary, received the card at Honiton signal box where he works, and was shocked to find it had been sent in 2005.

He said: “It was quite a surprise, when the post was brought up to me I thought, this is a bit early for a Christmas card, then I checked the postmark and realised what had happened.

“I know it was a second class stamp but that’s ridiculous!”

Keith, who lives on Hillcrest, normally receives a card at his work from an old friend, Martin Mynard in Axminster, every Christmas.

But back in 2005 his annual holiday greeting never arrived, until now, meaning the card took more than five and half years to travel 10 miles

Keith rang Martin to let him know his Christmas good wishes had finally arrived, and his friend said: “Well I did send it second class after all!”

He said he was pleased it wasn’t something more imprtant than a Christmas card he had been waiting for almost six years.

The envelope had the full address of the signal box at the station, but only contained part of the postcode, EX14, without the last three digits, which Keith thinks may have been the problem.

The Royal Mail say they do not know what happened to the card, but seemed unwilling to believe it has been with them and the postal system since Martin Mynard put it in the letterbox near his home in Axminster back in 2005.

Richard Hall, a company spokesman said: “It is difficult to speculate what may have happened to this item, but almost certainly it was put back into the postal system very recently.”

This is despite the postmark on the card declaring the reader to ‘Have a 1st Class Christmas’.

Mr Hall added: “We regularly check all our sorting offices. It is extremely unlikely that this item was in our system all this time.”