60-year-old handwritten letters addressed to Hemel Hempstead discovered in canal

The BBC has revealed that letters sent to a property in Hemel Hempstead were found in a canal in Birmingham.

A woman who was magnet fishing at the canal found the letters and launched a social media appeal to get them to the household they were sent to.

The letters, which have been seen by the BBC, are dated as being written on March 1, 1962. Sent from Nottingham, 32 letters packed together were taken out of a canal in Birmingham by the Fort Shopping Park.

The BBC has confirmed that the letters were addressed to a Janet Millington at Glen View Road in Hemel Hempstead. It was also reported that the sender - who signs the letters "Arch" - also gave his address as Rupert Street in the Meadows area of Nottingham, but that part of the city has been converted into an industrial estate.

Shirley Elmore, 52, recovered the letters and launched a social media appeal to help return them to either the sender or intended recipient. The BBC has not disclosed how people can get in touch with Shirley to assist.

She told the BBC that lots of people have commented on her posts, but none of them had links to the sender or recipient.

According to the BBC the sender writes about how much he is missing the Hemel Hempstead resident. In one he wrote how he had phoned her and got no answer, but would try again the next day, the BBC has revealed.