Radlett postcard mystery search might be inspiration for new book
Postcard to Miss Peel - Credit: Archant
Clues to a possible real-life love story have been found by a curious writer looking for inspiration for her next romantic novel.
Postcard to Miss Peel - Credit: Archant
Jane Sleight’s mother-in-law, Mary Sleight, bought a recipe book from a charity stall in Norfolk between 1973 and 1975 - she has only just shown Jane an interesting postcard slotted she found inside.
It has sat in Mary’s jewellery box for more than 40 years.
Written by M Keane on December 30, 1937, from Thebes in Egypt, the postcard is addressed to Miss A D Peel at the National Provincial Bank Flat in Radlett, which later became a NatWest.
It pictures Tutankhamun’s tomb and reads: “On the Nile Steamer. This is a little surprise for you and for me.
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“I only made up my mind ten days before I left home. Sorry I hadn’t time to see you in London but hope to on my return.
“This is a pleasant change from London fogs I left behind me.”
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It signs off with a good luck for 1938.
Jane, a fiction writer in Hampstead, believes M Keane is a man because of the way it is written and it would have been more difficult set off on a journey of that magnitude within only ten days for a woman in that period.
She said: “I’m curious, because it’s quite an unusual thing, what was he doing there and who was this person? Was there a romance behind it?
“What would be lovely would be to find something about the lady who received the postcard - it’s fantastic, it’s a nice story, and it would be lovely if there as a hook in that.”
After a little research, Jane found someone who might be Miss Peel, but the timeline was wrong, and the woman would have been married by 1937. Apart from that however, it makes sense - Jane wondered if it had been an affair?
Jane noted that it could be the inspiration for a number of stories, maybe set in contemporary life.
Anyone with information should contact Jane on jane.sleight@hotmail.co.uk
