Wedding album stolen 17 years ago is mysteriously left outside couple's home

Amid Nigel and Gillian Stewart’s joy at celebrating 25 years of marriage, one thing was missing.
The couple had no photographs to remember the wedding by, because their caravan was stolen 17 years ago with the cherished album inside.
But this week Mrs Stewart found a mysterious package outside their front gate – and in it, the album.

‘My immediate reaction was  that my daughter had ordered something over the internet,’ she said yesterday.
‘Then I thought I was seeing things – I actually thought “This can’t be right”.
‘I read the words “Our wedding” and I thought “Someone’s dropped their wedding album”.’
Only when she opened the pages to find the images of her own big day did the penny finally drop.
The couple, who celebrated  their silver wedding anniversary in September, are now desperate to meet and thank whoever left the package, which was sealed inside a plastic bag.
The caravan was stolen from outside the Stewarts’ home in  Gilford, County Down, while they were on holiday in Tenerife in November 1994.
‘I didn’t care about the caravan as the insurance covered it — I just wanted the album back,’ Mrs Stewart said.

Despite a public appeal for their return, neither the caravan nor the album were traced.
And the wedding photographer no longer had copies of any of  the pictures.
But yesterday an overwhelmed Mrs Stewart said: ‘The returned album is in perfect condition, as if it had only gone astray for a few days.
‘There is not even a fusty smell  of it or anything. Everything is perfect.’
Mrs Stewart was pregnant with their son Peter, now 16, when the caravan vanished. They also have a daughter, Emma, 22.

Both have now seen their parents’ wedding photographs for the first time. Mrs Stewart said: ‘It’s lovely for the children – they only know their dad with grey hair.’
She added: ‘Whoever has found it maybe does not want to be known.
‘Or maybe the person who took it has moved house and it has been found by the new people? We have thought of everything.
‘You needn’t be a bit afraid to come forward to me, because I bear no grudges. I would just love whoever it was to come forward, so I could thank them in person.’ 

 



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