WW2 postcard delivered to Liverpool home 77 years after being sent

Bill Caldwell's children said he loved being in the Navy and joined as soon as he was old enough

A postcard sent by a Royal Navy recruit during World War Two has been delivered to his childhood home in Liverpool after 77 years.

Bill Caldwell was 18 and in his first week of training at HMS Raleigh in Torpoint, Cornwall, when he wrote saying he was "in blue at last".

Mr Caldwell's adult children have seen the postcard for the first time after it was delivered on Friday.

Royal Mail said it was likely it had been reposted recently.

Mr Caldwell's children said their father, who died 25 years ago and did not write many letters, tried to join the Navy at 15 but had to wait until he was 18.

"It was the most surreal thing on a Friday night to suddenly read a postcard that dad had written 77 years ago when he was training to be a sailor in the Navy," said daughter Joanna Creamer.

The front of the postcard shows a picture of the HMS Raleigh figurehead with recruits marching by

The postcard is postmarked 1943 and bears another stamp saying: "Post early in the day."

It was sent to Mr Caldwell's "uncle Fred", who his children said lived with his parents in their family home.

Relatives still live in the house which is how his children, who live in Bristol and Surrey, were alerted to its arrival.

'In blue at last'

In the postcard, Mr Caldwell wrote: "Well I am in blue at last. I did not think it would be like this - you don't get much time for yourself, do you?

"But I like it alright.

"I will write a letter to you all when I get half a chance so will you hold on a bit? I have 19 weeks here yet.

"Give my love to everyone. Love, Bill."

Mr Caldwell's son Tony said his father was "understated" and it was "wonderful" to receive the postcard, which he thought said "so much between the lines".

"It seems it's not quite the Boy's Own story [he] thought [he] was letting [himself] in for," he said.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said it was "difficult to speculate" on what happened to the postcard but it was "likely it was put back into the postal system by someone recently, rather than being lost or stuck somewhere in the network".