A LETTER addressed only with a picture was successfully delivered in North Craven within days of being posted.

Austwick Post Office - which has a small sorting office - received the mystery letter last week.

The envelope had a window with a picture of a man in it. The sender had addressed it c/o Austwick Post Office and had written "please deliver to the man in the picture", explained Anne Verhagen, of Austwick Post Office.

"the man in the picture was standing in Austwick and he had some pigeons in a cage," said Mrs Verhagen.

"Nobody here recognised him, but someone thought he might be from up Newby way so we sent it over to Clapham Post Office to see if they could help."

John Reeves, of Clapham Post Office, took one look at the picture letter and recognised one of his customers - Roy Monk, of Newby.

"I recognised him because he comes in the Post Office and also the fact that he has racing pigeons," said Mr Reeves.

The postman delivered Mr Monk's letter last Thursday morning, less than a week after it was posted in London.

Mr Monk was delighted with the service. "It only took a few days. There was no name on it, just my picture with an arrow and please deliver it to me.

"I keep and race pigeons and I was about to let some young ones go in Austwick when a car came past and the people took an interest in what I was doing. They took some pictures and it was these they sent to me. They were from London and on holiday up here. The letter soon got here. It's very good service."

Mrs Verhagen said: "We're really pleased it was possible to track him down. If they hadn't recognised him at Clapham we would have put the letter in our window and asked if anyone knew him."

Picture by Stephen Garnett.