Letter· 1990s
A writer buys a used book and finds his own postcard home
By the Editors · As reported by The Spectator, 29 September 2025
FoundLondon, United Kingdom
Reunited — it went back to its owner or their family.
Journalist John Sturgis keeps the things he finds in secondhand books, among them a 1970s Dublin bus ticket, a 1990 rave flyer and an unspent book token from 1962. The strangest was a postcard in his own handwriting. He had sent it to his mother from a camping trip near Lochinver in the Scottish Highlands in August 1993, and it came back to him inside a book he bought years later. The friend who had been on the trip with him had no memory of it.
This is our summary of a find reported in the press. For the full story, photographs and any updates, read the original report in The Spectator.