Long-lost photos found through the Reporter

11:48am Friday 20th June 2008

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PRECIOUS family photographs lost in Florida 20 years ago have been reunited with their Ledbury owners, with the help of the Reporter.

Louisa Harland was only sixteen in 1988 when she found the roll of film in the back of a hotel draw at Indian Shores in Florida.

She developed the images as soon as she returned home to Norwich and vowed to find the owners.

But it was the use of the internet, detective work and the help of Ledbury TIC and the Reporter that led to the crucial breakthrough, two decades on.

One of the pictures showed a signpost to Hereford and Leominster, and another was of the Market House, Ledbury's icon.

Using a map and also the internet, Mrs Harland was able to identify Ledbury as the source of the 31 pictures and she contacted both the TIC and the Reporter for help.

She said: "I would like to send the pictures to their rightful owner because, if they were mine, they would be of great sentimental value."

The Reporter carried a selection of images on its website, and these were recognised by the owners of the pictures, Jane Eversham, the deputy manager at Ledbury Community Hospital and her sister, Ann Gladwin, the former treasurer of the Ledbury Day Care Centre.

Mrs Eversham, of Long Acres said: "I could not believe it. We had to email other pictures to Louisa, to prove who we were, so it was all quite exciting.

"We very much appreciate all that Louisa has done and I email her quite often now, so I have made an internet friend."

Some of the pictures show Ledbury Carnival Day in the 1980s. There are shots of deer on the Deer Park estate and a host of more personal images, including a 90th birthday party.

Mrs Eversham added: "My children are on the photographs. Paul and Sarah are grown up now, and Paul has two children of his own."

The sisters had long given up hope of ever seeing the images again.