Nightclub Tracks Down Woman Who Lost Her Time Capsule Wallet 30 Years Ago on a Night Out

Music fans wait outside the O2 Ritz venue in Manchester. Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

A Manchester nightclub is hoping to reunite a woman with her wallet that she lost on a night out in the 1980s.

The wallet, that is like a time capsule from 30 years ago, includes an ID card for Elizabeth Sarah Dale, a law student with bob hair.

Staff at the Ritz nightclub in Manchester found the wallet behind a dusty radiator when having a clear out.

“We were clearing out the other day because we’re having a refurb in the offices, and it had fallen down the back of a radiator – it must have been lodged there since God knows when,” Chris Mann, bar manager at the Ritz Manchester told the Warrington Guardian.

“Inside, it has a library card, an old Midland Bank cash cheque card, about 12p in change, a hand-written invoice, a payslip with the name of the company she worked for and a photographic student ID with an address in Thelwall,” he said.

He added, “It’s coming up to our 90th birthday but this wallet has been here for about 30 years, so we just figured it might be nice to reunite it with its owner.”

It turns out the mystery woman is now a senior lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service.

She was found by Mail Online reporter Nick Fagge. Dale, now 51 years old, joked with him, “I want my 12p back!”

She told the news outlet that she was a little disappointed that her wallet had a library pass and a residents’ association card, remarking that it’s not very “eighties rock n' roll”.

“It doesn’t surprise me that there was only 12p in it though,” she said. “I was a hard up student in those days! I was on a tight budget of something like £10 a week. If there was only a few pence left I must have lost it at the end of the night.”