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A wedding guest received a home food delivery with a difference - a spud with a stamp on it that had travelled 400 miles by post.

Dermot Bradley, a 52-year-old painter from Derry, got a huge shock when the Maris Piper arrived in the post from Birmingham - his address written in marker on the skin and a heartfelt message of thanks written on the other side.

It was from his sister-in-law, Edel, thanking him for a special wedding gift.

“My sister-in-law Edel and her husband Jason French had a very special, spud-themed wedding in August,” said Dermot.

“Her table candles were mounted on spuds, the menus pinned to spuds and the favours were spuds.

“She lives in England and came back to get married in Derry. She felt that spuds were always associated with Ireland and went in that direction for her big day. She thought it would save money and be original.”

Dermot arranged for singer Brian Kennedy - a hero of Edel’s - to deliver a special video message to the couple on their big day.

And afterwards she decided to repay the gesture with the offbeat gift for her brother.

Dermot said: “I didn’t think anything more of it. Then the postman arrived at the door at the weekend and my 11-year-old son answered. The postman said he had a spud parcel and he could take it or leave it.

(Image: Dermot Bradley / BBC NI)

“My son accepted it and brought it in to me. You can imagine the surprise, I was absolutely dumbstruck. Then I read the back of it. It said: ‘Thank you so much for making our day so very special, from Team French’. It was a lovely gesture. We laughed so much.”

When Dermot inspected the strange parcel he noticed that it was not mashed, bashed or chipped in any way, even though it had travelled for hundreds of miles.

“It was in absolutely perfect condition,” said Dermot.

“There wasn’t a mark on it. Fair play to all the Royal Mail staff, they treated it with the utmost care to get it to us like that. I don’t imagine they get many parcels like that.”

Dermot says he will now stew over his response and has asked the public to chip in with ideas.

“I am pondering what to give her back,” said Dermott.

“I was thinking of sticking a stamp on a sirloin steak and sending her that. The postman might not be too happy though.

“I am trying to figure out how to preserve it. I am open to ideas. Some say you can freeze it, others say a lick of varnish might preserve it. But in these times of austerity, you never know, it might still be eaten.”

Edel, who posted the spud parcel from Birmingham, said staff in her local Post Office thought she was joking when she arrived with a Maris Piper for posting.

“It took me a while to get a pen that would write on the potato,” she said.

“The guy in the Post Office thought I was joking until he saw the address written. He said no a few times when I asked him to post it. Then he said I’d need to put it in a box, I just kept saying please until he give in. He finally said he’d give it a go and asked me to let him know if it got there.”

A Royal Mail spokeswoman added: “We’ve had traffic lights, insects, lizards, live scorpions, fruit and even prosthetic limbs.

“However, unwrapped items of food that are perishable should not be sent in the post as they could damage other customers’ mail and our own machinery.

“We strongly encourage customers not to post anything into the postal system which is not properly packaged or is on our restricted list. Customers can obtain advice from any Post Office branch on packaging and restrictions.”