The bizarre West Yorkshire family heirloom - a 70-year-old Easter egg
Still in its original wrapping, a 70-year-old Easter egg has become a family heirloom for Moya Taylor.
She discovered it 10 years ago while clearing out an aunt's house.
Now she can't bear to part with it. "It's been up in the wardrobe for years," said Mrs Taylor, 61, of Victoria Street, Featherstone, near Pontefract.
"When aunt Ruby died, I had to clear out her house and emptied a lot of blanket boxes. That's where I found the egg.
"It was in a box and surrounded by raffia straw. It still had sugar flowers on top and has the name Dahlia on the box."
Moya said that as child she heard stories about the egg but didn't believe them.
But it emerged that it was an intended gift for John
Henry Jones, the son of her uncle George, a miner.
John Henry died on April 20, 1934, at the age of 22 months, just before Easter. His mother Lilian had died nine months earlier at the age of 21.
The story then becomes cloudier.
Uncle George married Ruby, who came from a well-to-do background in Bolsover, Derbyshire, and they moved to live at Skeller near Doncaster.
"We used to call her the posh auntie," said Moya. "She wasn't really accepted by the family in the 1930s. It was a bit of a scandal.
"My brother Jack told me that Ruby had lots of old sovereigns he played with and she had a big Easter egg that belonged to baby John.
"When they left Featherstone, she took the egg with her and no one had seen it since."
Moya - who has so far managed to hide the egg from her grandchildren - reckons that it would be good publicity for the manufacturers if they could be traced.
