That’s a snap of a 1939 Singer 99K which we bought in Beckenham last year.  When I got that machine home, we found that in the base of it was a receipt made out to a lady who bought it secondhand in Sheffield in 1975.   When we’d finished work on it, we put the receipt inside the original instruction book, and you might just be able to see it sticking out the top in this picture, which is the one I used on the blog when I listed this machine for sale.

Before long we sold it to Linda in East Anglia, who named it Vera, and in due course Linda sent us an email, which I quote here by her kind permission …

Hope this finds you both well. I just wanted to say I am still  walking around with a smile on my face, and still  just love looking at Vera!

In the instruction book was a receipt,  for  a  Mrs Marshall  of Sheffield, well we  googled the address, and would you believe, it was a  Mrs Marshall still living there.  There was a phone no….. So I phoned her, and yes she bought Vera in 1975 in Sheffield. She said she had loved  her Singer, and had handed it on to her Daughter, and this is where I thought I  just might  be in trouble, because she said, she did not know her daughter had got rid of it!  Whoops!  Anyway, she took my phone no…..

She has just phoned me to say, she has spoken to her Daughter, and daughter said,  they  did not have the room for it,  so her Husband took it and  DUMPED IT, in a Tip in  Newcastle 20 years ago!   Amazing, I just hoped I have not caused a Family row!   Lovely to know a little of her history.

Isn’t it just?  Of course the question now is how on earth it found its way from a tip in Newcastle to a house clearance place in Beckenham …