Return to sender for Valerie's 1955 'voicemail'

A woman who recorded a "talking postcard" in New York 70 years ago has been reunited with the disc after it was found in a warehouse.

The Voice-O-Graph was recorded in 1955 by a 20-year-old Valerie Stannard, from Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, on the 90th floor of the Empire State Building.

She sent it to her parents, but eventually it found its way to a warehouse and then into the possession of a record dealer who, intrigued by its history, used social media to track down her relatives.

After hearing a digitally remastered version of her "voicemail", Valerie, 90, whose surname is now MacBean and who lives in Canada, said: "I'm stunned."

The Voice-O-Graph was a popular method of capturing messages in the 1940s and 1950s using a coin-operated booth.

The recording would be made into a vinyl record, typically sent to relatives abroad.

"It's a WhatsApp voice note that takes about a month to arrive," said Joel De'ath, a record dealer who chanced upon the recording in a "dusty old warehouse".

"I just find them absolutely fascinating, because as much as I'm a fan of rare records, this is a complete one-off."

The disc, dated 27 October 1955, came in an envelope with the address of a Mr & Mrs Stannard of Stanborough Green, Welwyn.

Joel said the temptation to "do a bit of digging" into the person behind the recording was too strong to resist, and he posted a photo of the record on social media with a view of reuniting it with a relative.

When Valerie's daughter, Zoe, received a message from Joel, she initially thought it was spam.

But she said: "I was having rather a challenging day, and it was just such a little ray of sunshine in the middle of a bit of awfulness. So, I reached out, and the rest is history."

The recording captures Valerie wishing her mother a happy birthday, revealing her location at the Empire State Building and saying how much she's enjoying America before signing off.

Zoe relayed the news to her mother Valerie, who now lives in Victoria, on Vancouver Island.

"It was a little bit frightening. As my daughter put it, I was sounding terribly Downton Abbey-ish," Valerie told BBC Three Counties presenter Justin Dealey.

Zoe and her husband plan to meet Joel on a trip to the UK next year, bringing the story full circle.

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