Dogwalker discovers bottled message from the past

Tuesday 18 February 2020

Dozens of islanders have turned history hunters after a local dogwalker stumbled across what appears to be an 80-year-old message in a bottle.

Nigel Hill found the bottle on the beach in St. Aubin whilst he out for a morning walk with his Labrador, Reggie.

Speaking to Express about the auspicious moment, Nigel said that he was near to a slipway at Bel Royal when he saw something on the ground. 

“I looked to my left and I just saw this bottle lying on the ground… it didn’t have any branding on it, [it was] like an old-type bottle. And I saw that there was something rolled up in it.”

Intrigued by its contents, Nigel picked up the bottle and although he could see there was some writing on it, he couldn’t make out what it said. 

Once home, Nigel said he “tried valiantly to get the piece of card out of the bottle” but that he couldn’t and “reluctantly” decided to smash the glass in order to retrieve the note which was dated September 1938.

Pictured: Nigel had to "reluctantly" smash the bottle to retrieve the note inside (Nigel Hill). 

Written on the back of a cake box from Cawley Bros - a shop that used to be on Halkett Place in the 1930s - the note asks for its finder to get in touch with the sender, John Stapleford, at his address in Barnet, England “with a photograph”. 

Describing how he felt when he saw how old the message was, Nigel admitted he was, at first, a little sceptical.

“I was surprised, I have to say, and I thought, ‘It’s got to be a fix, right? It’s got to be a hoax!’” But after looking into the bakery that the card had come from, Nigel realised that the note must be genuine.

After posting his discovery on Facebook, it quickly piqued the interest of islanders with many joining efforts to find out who Mr Stapleford was.

Nigel said he’s even made contact with the current occupant of the address given in the note who is now asking people in Barnet whether they know anything about Mr Stapleford.

Although she didn’t know anything about the Staplefords, she did manage to find out that a John Stapleford bought her house back in 1921.

Other commenters sought out archive documents to track down the mystery bottle message sender. Their closest guess was a John Deweldycz Stapleford who was born in Barnet on 4 August 1889. According to census records tracked down by one islander, this Mr Stapleford was the eldest of three sons. His father, the census states, was a Draper and Outfitter. 

Pictured: Some commenters have sourced documents from English archives relating to Mr Stapleford.

Aged just 21, Mr Stapleton was a 2^nd Division Clerk for HM Customs and Excise. Documents show that he went onto become a civil servant and chief accountant in the customs and excise department. 

It also records that he was married to a Nellie E Stapleford, a housewife who was ten years his junior.

There are also documents which suggest that Mr Stapleford was very well-travelled – heading over to New York and visiting the Niagra Falls in 1934, just four years before he sent the message in a bottle.

Although Mr Stapleford appears to have died in 1980, aged 91, Nigel said he still wants to honour the instructions on the message in a bottle. There’s even a suggestion that his children might still be living in Norfolk, and Nigel said: “It’s an ongoing project, but I’d very much like to fulfil his wishes and actually send it back with a photograph of me and my dog on the beach with his bottle because I think it would be quite cool!”

Speaking about how quickly islanders managed to zero in on the sender, Nigel said: “I have to say I am incredibly amazed at the community effort here in tracking this chap down. That’s really indicative of the Jersey people that they would do that for the chap. It’s fantastic actually.”