A 70-year-old UK woman applied for the job as a motorbike stunt rider but never heard back from the company. Nearly five decades after Tizi Hodson wrote that application in January 1976, it has returned home. All these years, it was behind a drawer in a post office and was recovered 48 years later.
A handwritten note “Late delivery by Staines Post Office” appears on the top of the letter. “Found behind a draw [sic]. Only about 50 years late,” it adds.
Hodson told BBC, “I always wondered why I never heard back about the job. Now I know why.”
Meanwhile, Hodson is still not sure about who brought the letter back to her or how it ended up in her hands, after all these years. Recalling the events that led her to figure it out, she told BBC, “How they found me when I’ve moved house 50-odd times, and even moved countries four or five times, is a mystery.”
Nonetheless, the letter is quite important to her. To this day, she remembers typing it all out in her London flat and waiting for a mail every day just to have her hopes dashed. At that time, she wanted to be a stunt rider— someone who rides a motorcycle and performs dangerous stunts.
Although it got stuck in the post, the setback did not prevent her from leading a “daredevil” life as she got a job that used to take her all over the world, the news agency reports.
She relocated to Africa, worked as a horse whisperer and snake wrangler, mastered flying, and went on to become an aerobatic pilot and flight teacher.
Reflecting on the letter she wrote when she was just beginning her career, Hodson told BBC that she was careful to keep her gender a secret. To ensure that she got an interview, she ensured that she did not disclose to the companies that advertised for a stunt rider that she was female. She was going at a hundred miles an hour to prove she didn’t care even if she would break every bone in her body, she was okay with that.
“If I could speak to my younger self, I would tell her to go and do everything I’ve done. I’ve had such a wonderful time in life, even if I have broken a few bones.”
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