Mailed job application returned to woman 50 years later

A British woman who applied by mail for a job as a motorcycle stunt rider said her application was returned to her after nearly 50 years lost at a post office.

Tizi Hodson, 70, of Lincolnshire, said she mailed out the application in January 1976, hoping to land her dream job as a motorcycle stunt rider.

“I always wondered why I never heard back about the job. Now I know why,” Hodson told the BBC.

The letter recently arrived in her mailbox with a note at the top saying: “Late delivery by Staines Post Office. Found behind a [drawer]. Only about 50 years late.”

Hodson said the application letter’s return came as a shock.

“How they found me when I’ve moved house 50-odd times, and even moved countries four or five times, is a mystery,” she said. “It means so much to me to get it back all this time later. I remember very clearly sitting in my flat in London typing the letter.”

“Every day I looked for my post but there was nothing there and I was so disappointed because I really, really, wanted to be a stunt rider on a motorcycle,” she said.

Hodson said failing to land the job didn’t curb her daredevil instincts: she went on to perform jobs including snake handler, aerobatic pilot and flying instructor.

The Swansea Building Society received an even older delivery recently when a postcard arrived at the address currently occupied by the group after being mailed to a previous resident 121 years earlier.

A spokeswoman for the Royal Mail said the story behind the postcard’s late arrival is unclear, but it was most likely found somewhere and placed back into the mail recently, rather than having been lost in the mail for over a century.