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[1] Every week, some 6,000 items arrive at Transport for London’s lost property warehouse. Mobile phones, wallets, rucksacks, spectacles and keys top the list. But there have been some unexpected items, including a bag of cooked frogs and an urn of ashes. “We didn’t keep them,” Transport for London manager Diana Quaye said of the frogs.
[2] A sandwich left on London Underground’s Victoria line, or a chocolate bar on the top deck of a No 37 bus, gets chucked away with the cooked frogs and all other perishable items. But everything else is sorted, logged, labelled and filed away in Transport for London’s East London warehouse. The warehouse is slightly smaller than a football pitch and packed full of rows of sliding shelves. It is also the biggest lost property office in Europe, Transport for London said.
[3] Umbrella handles stick out from one shelf and books overflow from another. Hundreds of stuffed children’s toys, including a huge St Bernard dog teddy and a Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, sit sadly, awaiting collection. One area is dedicated to interesting finds from over the decades. There’s a wedding dress, an artificial limb and a taxidermy fox, among other treasures that would delight flea market enthusiasts.
[4] Items are lost on London’s tubes (underground trains), overground trains, buses and black cabs. Less than a fifth are ever reclaimed. After typically holding items for three months, Transport for London decides whether to auction them or send them to charity. They often give sports equipment to a local school, while new toys are donated to a children’s charity at Christmas.
[5] The urn of ashes, held in a bag that was then stolen, was kept by Transport for London for seven years before eventually being returned to its owner in Germany. Commuters on buses are the biggest culprits when it comes to lost property, Quaye said. “I don’t know if people get a bit relaxed on the bus, but they tend to leave items on there,” she said.
Source: Reuters, November 29
