Northampton letter from grandad arrives 22 years late

The thank you note from Ronald Smith to Zoë Fierro was for the card and vouchers he received from her for his birthday in 1998

A mother-to-be has received an unexpected letter from her deceased grandad 22 years after he posted it.

Zoë Fierro, from Northampton, opened the thank you note from Ronald Smith, from Long Buckby, who died in 1999.

The 44-year-old was left in tears and it "completely threw" her as she recognised his handwriting straight away.

"It feels like a real hello from him, 'hi I'm still around, everything is good'," she said.

Zoë's baby is due in early November

When the letter, that had a second class stamp on it, arrived on Tuesday, "I saw the handwriting and thought umm that looks like my grandfather's writing," she said.

As he died 21 years ago she was left amazed and thought 'it can't be grandad's writing, is someone playing a joke?'.

She skipped right to the end to check and it was signed 'love from grandad'.

It was a thank you letter, it was posted in June 1998 a few weeks after Mr Smith's birthday in May.

It was franked 4 June 1998, Northamptonshire, and was posted about 11 miles (18km) away from Long Buckby, she said.

The letter said:

Zoë 

For your card and vouchers, very much appreciated.

We were very pleased of your success in your college exams (workshops).

Well done!

Love from

Grandad

The letter, which had Zoë's maiden name on it, had a second class stamp and a frank mark from 1998

"It completely threw me, it just seemed like such a surreal thing to happen, how is he doing this now?

"It was just lovely, the recognition of his writing just came so easy."

A Royal Mail spokeswoman said although it was "difficult to speculate" it believed it was likely "it was put back into the postal system by someone recently, rather than being lost or stuck somewhere in the network".

"We are sorry for the distress this has caused," she added.