South Australian man and his son found the bottle, which was dropped from an ocean liner by 13-year-old Paul Gilmore in 1969

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The British author of a message in a bottle that recently washed up on the South Australian coast after more than half a century has been found – and he is currently out to sea, his sister says.

South Australian man Paul Elliot and his son Jyah told ABC radio they found the bottle on the Eyre Peninsula’s west coast recently while fishing.

Elliot said he was looking for the author, Paul Gilmore, who described himself in the note as a 13-year-old English boy travelling on a ship along the southern Australian coast from Fremantle to Melbourne.

The note is handwritten on paper with Sitmar Line’s company name at the top and is dated 17 November 1969.

In it the teenager says he is travelling on board the Fairstar, a ship that brought many British migrants to Australia during the 1960s under the assisted passage scheme.

The boy urges whoever finds the note to reply to him and gives an address in Melbourne.

On Thursday, the ABC reported that it had tracked down Gilmore’s sister, Annie Crossland.

“It’s amazing, absolutely incredible,” she told the ABC. “He’ll be chuffed to bits.”

In another twist, Crossland told the ABC from the UK that he was currently on a cruise in the Baltic Sea.

“The last time he was on a ship was probably going to Australia. Cruises aren’t his thing,” she said.

Crossland, who was on board, recalled seeing her brother writing letters and dropping them into bottles. He had dropped about six into the ocean, he said.

The ABC said it was believed the bottle was dropped on the final leg of the journey between Fremantle and Melbourne.

Shown the letter by the ABC, Paul Gilmore’s brother, David said he was amazed. “I’m looking at the message now and yeah, I can see it’s my brother’s writing — he’s obviously a bit younger then,” he said.

The family lived in Australia until 1973, before returning to the UK.

Oceanographer David Griffin said the bottle could not have remained afloat for 50 years off the south coast because “the ocean never stays still”.

Griffin suspected that the bottle had been buried on a beach for years, then refloated by a storm.

“If it had been dropped in anywhere in the ocean somewhere south of Australia, then there’s no way it’s going to stay actually at sea moving around for more than a year or two,” he told the ABC.

The author gave his position as “1,000 miles east of Fremantle”.

However, it is not clear whether the author actually meant 1,600 kilometres out of Fremantle, which would have included a journey south along the west coast before turning east.

Last year, a West Australian woman found what is thought to be the world’s oldest message in a bottle.

Tonya Illman found the 132-year-old gin bottle in the dunes near Wedge Island. Inside, she found a roll of paper printed in German and dated to 12 June 1886, which was authenticated by the Western Australian Museum.