A message in a bottle thrown out to sea from Blackpool, England—in the hope it would reach America—has washed up 60 YEARS later.
Two students discovered the glass bottle lying in the stones on Hove Beach seafront in East Sussex, and were amazed to find it had a letter inside addressed to the “Yanks” written in 1961.
Housemates Indiana Tarrant and Luca Gamberini, both 21, found the brown beer bottle on Feb. 2 and are now hoping to reunite it with the sender, one “Bobby Doseuegs.”
The bottle washed up over 300 miles away from Blackpool, near a newly renovated seafront property.
“We were skimming stones along the front on Hove Beach and there it was,“ Indiana said. ”It must have only been washed up that day as it was on the surface, close to the shoreline and the sea was out.”
The digital film graduates took the brown beer bottle home and used a knife to break open the wax seal cap. They managed to get the letter out with a pair of tweezers and were amazed to see the letter was dated August 7, 1961.
Luca, originally from Folkestone, added: “The wax seal must have weakened slightly over the years as there was some water in the bottle and the ink has run and faded.”
Dear you Yanks,
The lads are hoping to reunite the letter with the sender and have searched online but haven’t had much luck so far.
“We would love to find Bobby and his friends and let them know what happened to their letter and where it ended up all these years later,” Luca said.
From the content of the letter, the lads guess that Bobby may have been a young lad or teenager when the letter was written, meaning he would be in his 70s now.
Indiana added: “It is a shame it never reached the United States, but to wash up down here 60 years later really is something. It’s amazing that it has survived all these years, you would think the bottle would have been smashed a long time ago.”
The beer bottle still has part of its label intact, and the words “imperial stout” can still be partly read.
The housemates think it may be a bottle of Russian Imperial Stout.
“We would love to frame the letter and get it back to Bobby and we hope sharing this story will help us find him—or his family," Luca added.
“We were so shocked when we realized what it was, we couldn’t believe it and even more shocked to see how old the letter is. It’s like something out of a film.”
