Can you help solve the mystery of war letters to St Annes?

That’s the plea from a former chef who found a batch of letters by chance inside a hand-written recipe book he picked up online.

Mark Short, who lives in Milton Keynes, was clearing out some items at home when he picked up the book for the first time in years – and was reminded of the letters tucked inside.

With a date of 1940 on only one of the letters, they all appear to have been written decades ago and intended for a youngster called ‘Georgette’, living at the time at 55 Park Road, St Annes.

“All the letters are signed ‘Your Loving Daddy’ and most have lovely little drawings on them,” said Mark.

“One of them has a date of 1940 and there is an active service card with what I think is a name of Hazeldine and an address in Kent.

“There is no surname on any of the letters that I can see but one letter does have HMS Emerald c/o GPO London.

“I have found a reference to HMS Emerald online and tried looking at the crew list but no luck.

“I have tried using Facebook to no avail and have tried trawling records with again with no luck.

“From the letters I would imagine if Georgette is still alive she would be 89 or so and I would love to get them back to her or any of her family.”

Mark, 54, was a professional chef for many years until he decided to change careers and he now works for Avanti trains out of London Euston as a team leader dispatching trains.

“I bought the book off eBay about 10 years ago from someone I believe lived in the Midlands,” he added.

“I have tried several times to get some information via records and even popped in to Bletchley Park which is just round the corner from me but they could not help either.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of throwing them away as they could be precious to someone’s family and it’s a part of our war history.”

If you can shed any light on the mystery, email Mark at [email protected]