Dear LPG readers,

Not so long ago I wrote a little about my thoughts on losing things in the hope that if even one reader was helped through that period between the time when you realise that something is missing, and the time that you hopefully find it, then I will have done something worthwhile (►►►).

I recently learnt that today is National Lost and Found Day in the UK and thought that this might be a good period to highlight what can often be a time of serious relief after you find something at the end of that all-searching time of crisis.

I have learned on the internet that this day of acknowledgement was first celebrated in 2012, although Japan have been acknowledging a ‘lost and found’ system since the year 718, Napoleon Bonaparte was thought to have opened the first ever lost property office in Paris in 1805, and in 1933 London Transport established the UK’s most famous lost property office.    

I hope that nothing has actually gone missing for you at the moment but, now that I have learnt about it, I have good reason to celebrate this and every year…

At the turn of the century, I remember being left in charge of collecting the contributions for my mums Christmas club for a few weeks when she went on holiday.  I can’t explain how many individuals dropped off their weekly savings not to mention the contributions that I was supposed to collect.  I have to admit to feeling quite uneasy about having so much coinage and so many notes in the house.  I used to hide the carrier bag with all this money in behind the long curtains in the bedrooms of my house when I was at work. I was supposed to check it and bank it at the end of each week.   She was only gone for three weeks, but I never want to relive them. 

The end of the first week left me searching for £60.00 which was worrying. I thought that I had collected it but later found out that although I did visit the person who was supposed to give me that amount, we had a good talk and I forgot to actually collect it.  I remember thinking that I could just about afford to replace that amount if I really had to without causing myself too much financial anguish.  The second week came and went without incident, but when I got to week number three, I could not find a bank cash bag which contained £290.00. I could definitely remember receiving that money so, as you can imagine I had a real melt-down as I searched everywhere.  I got myself so confused that I could not remember which of my house’s three bedrooms’ curtains I had left the bag behind.  I ended up dismembering all the beds and I went as far as spreading the living room floor with newspaper and emptying the last bin bag out in case I had thrown it away.  In the end I found it behind the curtains; it had fallen out and was behind a bedroom curtain that I looked behind many times before finding it.  I think that that is the feeling I will remember every national lost and found day until I die.

I was a lot younger then but I still remember how good it felt to find that money and give the responsibility back to my Mum after her holiday. 

I hope that you have a ‘breathe out’ moment to celebrate today…

TM, Catford.

TN shares her findings…

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