Found 28 years on, a bride’s wedding treasures
IT was just another dust-covered box that pest controller Rod Smith came across investigating a problem in an attic.
But inside was a treasure trove of memories Rosemary Cox and her husband Tom thought they had lost forever. The plastic storage box contained the bride’s wedding dress from 1988 and mementos including cards, the bridesmaids’ frocks and a local newspaper report of the day.
And thanks to Mr Smith’s dedicated work the couple have now been reunited with their precious possessions, which they had unknowingly left in a former home in Hungerford, Berkshire.
He found the box behind some insulation in the attic after being called to deal with a possible rodent problem.
‘On the outside it was disgusting,’ said Mr Smith. ‘When I opened it I expected to see it had all been ruined. But it was like the day they packed it. Everything was impeccable.
‘I knew it would be important to the bride and groom so I started trying to find them. It isn’t the sort of thing you throw away.’
The newspaper clipping in the box gave him the couple’s names and an appeal on Facebook was spotted by their daughter-in-law.
Mrs Cox, 60, who now lives near Taunton, Somerset, said it was ‘incredibly exciting’ to open the box again after 20 years.
‘The first thing I remember seeing was my headdress and tears came to my eyes,’ she said. ‘It was just so lovely.’
She and her husband, who had lived in the Hungerford house for two years in the mid-1990s, had always assumed the box came with them when they moved homes but it was only in 2002 that they discovered it was missing.
‘We could not work out where it had gone,’ said Mrs Cox. ‘We just resigned ourselves to never seeing it again, which was sad because it was so precious.’
She was full of praise for Mr Smith. ‘I couldn’t believe he had taken the trouble to find us,’ she said. ‘It was like a fairytale.’