Letter posted in 1916 delivered 107 years late
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The reading
Many moons ago, it took an age to send someone a message. Today, we have the Internet. We can instantly send someone on the other side of the world a message using email. One message that arrived earlier this week was not so instant. A letter was mailed from the English city of Bath in 1916. It then got lost in the post. It was finally delivered 107 years later to an address in London. The Royal Mail postal service in the UK said it was "uncertain what happened". A spokesperson said she was delighted the letter finally arrived, but had no idea why it was more than a century late. She said it may have fallen behind a piece of furniture.
Before the Internet, people wrote letters on paper. They then put these letters in an envelope. The sender then bought a stamp from a post office and stuck it on the envelope. They then put it in a mail box in the street. A postal worker would collect the envelope and the letter would begin its journey. It usually took a few days to reach its destination, if the address was in the same country. It could take weeks if the address was overseas. It sailed on a ship and was called "sea mail". Later, airplanes transported mail and we used "air mail". However, there was a slight problem with the letter that arrived 107 years late. The person to whom it was addressed was no longer living. He passed away in 1951.
Sources:
- https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/16/letter-lost-in-1916-delivered-in-london-more-than-100-years-later
- https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64647166
- https://www.the-sun.com/news/7419345/letter-posted-during-wwi-delivered/
Make sure you try all of the online activities for this reading and listening - There are dictations, multiple choice activities, drag and drop activities, sentence jumbles, which word activities, text reconstructions, spelling, gap fills and a whole lot more. Please enjoy :-)
