Walking along Cliad beach one summer's day, I picked up a bottle with a piece of paper inside it. The content of the bottle's message was that the writer (a student) had been, as he put it, touring the Americas on a liner which was making for its home port in Poland. He had thrown the bottle into the sea in the 'northern climes' and, if I remember correctly, it was around 14 months since the day he threw the bottle and I picked it up. I wrote and informed him that I had his letter and gave him several details of the beach and the island and its population. He received my letter and he was not long in replying. In it he said that he was studying a certain subject and that he lived with his parents in Zurich. He has written several times (his first name is Jurg) but it is his mother to whom I am indebted for the numberous letters and information she sends me. After my last wee note to her (I should mention her son had married soon after the bottle affair) she said that Jurg had now three children (I girl & 2 boys), that he had now moved to the capital, that he apologised for not writing to me oftener and that he was now a professor and was at that time with his wife and family on a lecture tour in different parts of America.

If any of our readers have their own 'bottle stories' we would be interested to receive details.