A TIME CAPSULE of post from 1996 transported a Wanstead woman back to the world of John Major, Princess Diana and Britpop when it was delivered to her home ten years late.

Marilyn Sandy was surprised to hear the post arrive earlier than usual one morning last week, and when she got home from work that evening she found that it was from a batch that had been stolen ten years earlier.

Along with it was a letter from the Royal Mail addressed to the customer, apologising for the delay and asking her to return it if the person it was addressed to had moved on.

She said: "When I got home I saw this letter from a magazine saying 'Thank you for your subscription' along with a clothes catalogue from Land's End.

"I looked at the date of it and it said 1996.

"There was a brochure from Lakeland Plastics which does kitchenware and I rang them up and told them about it and they thought it was hilarious. It gave them a really good laugh."

In the accompanying letter, the Royal Mail delivery manager wrote: "Some mail has been found which is around ten years old. I must stress that this is extremely unusual, indeed only 0.005 per cent of mail is affected by theft and the Royal Mail takes the security of mail very seriously."

Mrs Sandy said: "There was also an American Express bill which I wondered about because I pay it by standing order and I had paid it that day."

When she took a look at what she had been sent she also discovered that fashions are not what they were a decade ago.

"I didn't think the prices were much lower then but the hairstyles of the models were much more layered, a few more curls."