Michelle Harwood had not been born when the letter was written and did not expect to find the writer.

The letter would have been written before Michelle Harwood was born

Published4 hours ago

A letter written by a 10-year-old girl in the 1980s and hidden in the cavity of the stairs at her home has been found 44 years later

The house in Hockley, Essex, was undergoing renovation work when a worker found the scrap of paper and passed it to Michelle Harwood, who now lives there

Filled with curiosity, the 36-year-old charity worker examined it - noting "really neat" handwriting for a child - and posted on her local Facebook community group on Thursday morning to track down the author

Within an hour, multiple people had found and tagged Rachel Miles, now a 54-year- old teacher in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. And she responded

'Goosebumps'

The BBC contacted Miles almost half a century after she wrote the letter

She explained that time capsules were popular in the 1980s because of the influence of Blue Peter, and recalled writing the letter after her dad found a cavity behind the stairs