Hello. I found a pen in Temple Meads...

[whole diary]

[max_lan]

Hello,
On a recent journey through Temple Meads I picked up a shiny thing from the floor. It turned out to be a pen.
Sometime later I thought, "that pen was quite shiny, I wonder if it's valuable". It was. Definitely the sort of money you should be spending on a laptop rather than a pen...

Now, I don't often travel through Temple Meads (or generally by train) so I can't easily hand it in to Lost Property. And I have a feeling that if I phone up and say "I found a pen on the floor" the next thing I hear will be the click of a disconnection. And, if it's not claimed for 12 weeks, they "dispose" of it, which would be a shame.

I have a feeling that the owner is either so rich, they don't care or very upset that they lost a family heirloom. (I'm thinking rich, it's slightly damaged and in need of a clean although the damage could be from kicking round on the floor)

Has anyone any good ideas about how to restore the pen to it's owner?

Max

[grahame]

Hi, Max and welcome to the forum

You're caught between something of a rock and a hard place.   The official answer is to suggest that the best you can do is to hand it in to lost property at your local station; if that's FGW^▸ (First Great Western) operated, then the pen will make its way to Bristol and the lost property place there is the natural place where people will ask.  You may have read some criticism of their systems on here, but it's as real struggle to get property back to people and there's no easy answer.

If the professionals in Bristol don't reach the right person, I fear you (or others) have little chance of doing so yourself.  Of course, it's just possible that the person who lost the pen, or more likely a contact of his / hers is on here, could get in touch, and then - happy days - it would be sorted. Stranger things have happened, but being realistic you can't rely on them.

[Phil]

I think Twitter may possibly be a useful approach. It's amazing how things get forwarded on if the story catches people's attention - and this one has the hallmarks (ha!) of being just such an example.