A SEARCH is under way to find the recipient of a postcard delivered more than 50 years late.

The card, sent from Durban, South Africa, on November 2 1957, finally arrived at its destination, Monkton Wyld Court, Charmouth, in July.

LOST POST: Sarah Drewer with her son Noah, six months, Mary Elliott and Catherine Siddle of Monkton Wylde Court read the message on a postcard from Africa that took more than 52 years to reach its destination. Picture by James Dadzitis
DELAYED POST: The front of the postcard that was sent to Monkton Wyld School in 1957 and arrived only recently
SNAIL MAIL: The postcard which took more than 52 years to arrive west Dorset from South Africa

Office administrator Mary Elliott, who received the card with a batch of morning mail, said: "The post lady pointed out to me that it had taken a long time to arrive and asked if I had seen the date on it. When I saw the date it was incredible.

"The post lady did not know why it had taken so long. I was born in 1961 so it's older than me. We have made a couple of calls, one to a teacher and one to a daughter of a matron and no one remembers someone of that name.

"We are still making inquiries. We are trying to put the word out to see if someone does know something. We used to have children of six or seven who use to board here so they could now be between 55 or 70."

In 1957 the property was a boarding school, which closed in 1982.

Now it is an educational centre for sustainable living and hosts a range of courses, conferences and gatherings, and none of the current staff have any inkling who the card's intended recipient, a J C Besley, might be.

Laurie Walters, a colleague of Mary's at Monkton Wyld Court, said: "They may have been a student, teacher or staff member. We are putting the postcard on our website to see if anyone has any ideas about it. We would like to find the person it was addressed to."

The theory among current staff at Monkton Wyld is the card may have got stuck in a sorting machine in a mail depot, but this is disputed by Royal Mail.

A spokesperson said: "It is extremely unlikely that this item of mail was in our system all this time. We regularly check all our sorting offices and machines are cleared. It is difficult to speculate what may have happened, but almost certainly it was put back in a post box very recently."

The card appears to have been signed "mama" and part of the message reads: "We went on a bus on a tour and saw some natives in a village including this child, isn't it sweet."

The school is having an open day on Saturday, September 11, from 11am to 4pm where there will be a display of the postcard, which is likely to be framed.

If no clues about the recipient are found, it is hoped some light may be shed during the next Monkton Wyld School reunion, at Monkton Wyld Court on May 20-23, 2011.

The Grade II listed neo-Gothic Monkton Wyld Court was built in 1848 and in 1940, after a brief period as a hotel, it was converted into a school.