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Builder Finds Author of Touching 60-Year-Old Santa Letter Left in Chimney

Lewis Shaw said "It touched my heart."

ByABC News
December 10, 2015, 12:20 PM
Lewis Shaw, 24, of Reading, England found a 60-year-old letter to Santa Claus on Dec. 7, 2015, while renovating a home in Caversham.
Lewis Shaw, 24, of Reading, England found a 60-year-old letter to Santa Claus on Dec. 7, 2015, while renovating a home in Caversham.
Courtesy Lewis Shaw

— -- A British builder plans on reuniting a man with a letter he wrote and left for Santa Claus as a boy, inside a chimney, almost 60 years ago.

"We plan on giving the note back," Lewis Shaw of Reading, England told ABC News today. "I think that note means something to him because that house [where we found the letter] is his family home."

"We also got all the presents on the list and made up a box to give it to him," Shaw added.

PHOTO: Lewis Shaw, 24, of Reading, England pictured with his fiance Gemma Blackburn. Shaw said the 60-year old letter to Santa Claus was discovered after he and his co-workers removed a chimney from the property they were renovating.
Lewis Shaw, 24, of Reading, England pictured with his fiance Gemma Blackburn. Shaw said the 60-year old letter to Santa Claus was discovered after he and his co-workers removed a chimney from the property they were renovating.

Shaw, 24, said it was Monday on a job site in Caversham, England when he and his fellow workers came across a letter to Santa Claus as they removed a chimney during renovations.

"The customer, she wanted to pull the chimney out of the room to make the room bigger," Shaw said. "We started taking it down, when two of my colleagues were cleaning up and they discovered a piece of paper that was folded up. That's when we discovered the letter."

The note read:

Dear Father Christmas,

Please can you send me Rupert Annual and a drum,box of chalk, soldiers and Indians, slippers, silk tie,pencil box, any little toys you have to spare.

Love,David

"I was quite surprised," Shaw said. "It's not something you find everyday. The things he was asking for were very humble. He was asking for the things he needed in life, rather than the things he wanted.

"It shocks me because obviously my generation and the kids of today, you expect the gifts you ask for like the games condole, the IPads, phones...compared to the toy soldiers and pencil box he wanted," he added. "Some Christmases I've seen [lists] 3 pages long these days. [It was] quite a personal thing that touched my heart and it everybody else who was working on the site."

Shaw shared the note on Facebook where it eventually caught the attention of the local press, who connected him with its original author.

Shaw said he plans to meet with David tomorrow to gift him with his letter and the items that he listed on it almost six decades ago.