Stolen Wedding Album Returned After 17 Years
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November 10, 2011 TheFreshOutlook  |
A wedding album has been returned to the home of a Gilford couple, after being stolen over 17 years ago.
Nigel and Gillian Stewart’s holidaying caravan was stolen in November 1994, with the couple’s precious wedding photos inside.
The Stewarts, who were in Tenerife at the time, returned to find the caravan missing, along with the album.
“The only thing that annoyed me was that the wedding photos were in it,” said Gillian Stewart. “I didn’t care about the caravan as the insurance covered it – I just wanted the album back.”
Their photographer had no replacements of the photographs, and media appeals made by Mr and Mrs Stewart were in vain.
They had given up hope of ever seeing their wedding album again, until Tuesday afternoon when Mrs Stewart spotted a package sat outside the gates of their family home.
“I was coming down the driveway and I saw a package sitting outside our gates. My immediate reaction was that my daughter had ordered something over the internet. But when I lifted the package I could see through the two plastic papers, our wedding.”
Keen to find the mystery person who returned the wedding album, the Stewart family has made an appeal urging them to come forward, even if they held any involvement in the stealing of their caravan.
“You needn’t be afraid to come forward to me, because I bear no grudges,” Mrs Stewart said. “The past is the past, the future’s the future. I would just love whoever it was to come forward, so I could thank them in person.”
The return of the personally valuable album could not have come at a better time. The Stewart couple celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary only six weeks ago.
Asked of her husband’s reaction to the find, Mrs Stewart replied: “He joked [that] if he had found it he would have kept it until Christmas and surprised me, but I don’t think he would have done that.”
By Chloe Nicholas
[Image courtesy of CoreyAnn]
