SALLY SOLVES BOTTLE PUZZLE
Mystery letter’s writer revealed
The mystery of a message in a bottle sent by West Lothian holiday makers that washed up 1000 miles away on a Norwegian beach has been solved.
We reported last week how a person named Sally set the bottle adrift while on holiday in Kinghorn in Fife in 2014 and it was found last month in the town of Laukvik in Lofoten, Norway.
The message asked that whoever found it contact the West Lothian Courier and we put out an appeal last week in a bid to trace who wrote the message – and shortly after the mystery author came forward.
Bathgate schoolgirl Sally Ross and her grandad Peter Thomson wrote the letter and threw it into the sea while holidaying in Fife when Sally was just six-years-old.
The pair never expected to see it again and in another bizarre twist of fate, Peter might not have noticed the story at all had he not bought the paper for an article about Sally and her mum Laura – who graced page two of the paper the very same week. The pair had been in the paper calling on people to sign up for the Cancer Research UK Race for Life events after they committed themselves to fundraising.
Sally, now 10, said:“I didn’t expect the bottle to be found and had actually forgotten about it. I was shocked. I never expected it to get found so far away.”
Peter said he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw our story in last week’s paper and added:“I couldn’t believe it when I saw the paper, I never imagined we’d see it again. We nearly missed it though. We bought the paper to see the story about Sally and Laura raising money and there was the note on page five.”
Sally’s mum Laura said she had been so excited she took a copy of the paper into school to show her classmates.
She said:“She’s a bit of a celebrity among her friends.
“But she was a bit worried that she might get in trouble for throwing plastic into the sea!”