Alan misses his target in bid to share Halifax Town goodies

After striking up a friendship with a local family on their holiday to Bulgaria in January, registrar Alan Cain and his partner Kate, who live in Holywell Green, decided to post them a present.

And having discovered that the man who owned the apartment they had rented in Sofia was a Halifax fan, they put together a parcel including a Town scarf, hat, badge, matchday prgramme and pencil.

“This guy and his family were delightful, really lovely people. But for him to reveal he was a Halifax Town fan, you could have knocked me down with a feather.

“He knew the manager, the players, where they were in the league and their recent results,” Alan said.

But the idea didn’t exactly go to plan, as Alan explains.

“I posted it from the post office in Elland with all the relevant stamps and full postal address and my return address.

“I was a little surprised that Valeri didn’t acknowledge receipt, as we had exchanged mobile numbers and had texted previously.

“I checked the parcel’s progress and found it had left Ellandc on February 5, was collected from Leeds Mail Centre and boarded a Royal Mail truck for its journey to Heathrow before being handed over to GLS and its flight to Bulgaria.

“It reached the GLS location in Bulgaria on February 12 and was in a GLS delivery vehicle the next day.

“But the tracker then said it couldn’t be delivered as further address information was required, even though the only thing I missed out on the package was the colour of their front door.

“It then stayed in a GLS warehouse from February 14 to March 7, and then it spent three days in Neuenstein, Germany.

“It was then handed over to the consignee back in England, which was me, even though I was in Portugal at the time!

“What my parcel got up to then is a bit of a mystery, but it did end up back at the delivery office in Halifax.”

When asked if he would try to send the package again, Alan said: “I don’t think so, no. I think the same thing would end up happening again.

“Maybe if we find a cheap flight to Sofia next year we can take it with us.”

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “This parcel could not be delivered to its destination in Bulgaria as the item was incorrectly addressed. As such, the item was returned to the sender in the UK. This is standard procedure for undeliverable items. We always encourage customers to use a complete and correct address on any items that they send.”