To predate our computer system. you know, normally we would have records of everything that comes in and goes out, but, no, in this case, it s literally too old even for that. you may think this story is too good to be true. the borrower would ve racked up a fine for this book of more than £6000. however, wandsworth libraries has agreed to waive the charge on this occasion, much to the sender s relief. the book arrived without a note inside, but the bbc tracked down the mystery sender using the postmark on the envelope to the town of port moody near vancouver, population 35,000, where we found retired judge tony, who lived in tooting in his 20s. originally i was going to put a note in there, but i completely forgot. and when i went to mail it, i realised i hadn t put the note in, but by then, i couldn t be bothered. ijust wanted to get this thing going. so, ijust sent it. and i must admit when i sent it, i thought, if they have a good sense of humour, they ll get a chuckle out of th
To return a library book late by a couple of days, but how about 48 years? one library in south london had a shock when a book last taken out in 1974 appeared in their post via canada, begging the question who sent it? the bbc s harry lowe tracked down the mystery sender. so, how did the story come to pass? well, basically what happened was we just got a package in the mail one monday morning, and one of my colleagues opened it up and went, oh, look, somebody sent a book back to us. it s not every day that books are returned from outside of this south london borough. even rarer that they travel across oceans. so, imagine the surprise for staff at tooting library when this novel arrived from canada 48 years and 107 days overdue. a confederate general from big sur reportedly sold less than 1000 copies when published in the 1960s, and the author has long since died. but the book was taken out so long ago, librarians didn t even notice it was missing. we don t have a record of this loa