Mystery man in old school photo album left in taxi revealed

An old photo album left in a Gold Coast taxi has been reunited with its owner after The Courier-Mail’s story went viral.

The owner of a historic school photo album left in a Gold Coast cab has been found after The Courier-Mail’s story on the mystery went viral.

Taxi company 13cabs last week put out a public appeal to track down the owner of the album which had been sitting unclaimed in its lost property room.

Filled with old black and white school photos dating back almost 60 years, it traces one student’s academic life, from a blond-haired and grinning Grade 1 pupil to strapping senior high student towering over his classmates.

13cabs marketing boss Simon Mahoney with the album. Picture: Adam Head

There are also photos of the boy all grown up as a man, smiling and dapperly dressed in a bow-tie.

The album was discovered among lost property recently as 13cabs prepared to move its Gold Coast headquarters from Helensvale to Mermaid Beach.

“We’ve been unable to track down the album’s owner but thought it looked far too precious to just throw out,” 13cabs business development manager Simon Mahoney told The Courier-Mail.

“We’re hoping that by making a public appeal, we might be able to reunite the album with the man in the photos, or at least with a family member.

One of the old school photos from an album found in the back of a Gold Coast cab.

“The way the photos have been collected and displayed, showing every year of his school life, would suggest that they have great sentimental value.”

The uncaptioned photos start with the man’s first year of school at Darcy Road Public School in western Sydney in 1964.

He’s also pictured in 1960s school photos at Toongabbie East Public School and later, in the 1970s, at Pendle Hill High School.

Clayton Rumbel in the front row, middle, at Toongabbie East Public School in the 1970s

There’s a photo of him and three other students with a bespectacled man who appears to be the Pendle Hill High principal, taken in 1970.

Intriguingly, the album also contains a typed list of what looks to be the man’s former schoolmates, with phone numbers and notations of what became of some of them.

“Gone missing,” the list says of one woman.

‘West of the Nullarbor,” it says of another.

“Midnight Express, Portugal,” it says of a man, in an apparent reference to the classic 1970s film about a drug smuggler busted and imprisoned in Turkey.

Clayton Rumbel (second from left) with fellow students and a teacher at Pendle Hill High

The story went viral, leading to the album’s owner – retired IT worker Clayton Rumbel – being tracked down in Sydney.

The story went viral, leading to the album’s owner – retired IT worker Clayton Rumbel – being tracked down in Sydney.

Mr Rumbel, now 62, said he left the album in a cab while on the Gold Coast for a Pendle Hill school reunion about two years ago and was ‘over the moon’ to get it back.

He said it was given to him by his late mother and had great sentimental value.

Photo album owner Clayton Rumbel today

“I thought it was gone forever and it’s wonderful to get it back,” he said.

“There are plenty of our old school photos on the internet but it’s not the same as holding the one that was actually taken on the day. It’s something I treasure.”

Mr Mahoney had hoped to deliver the album to its rightful owner by cab, but Sydney is just a bit too far.

So he will fly down instead and hand it over to Mr Rumbel in person.

.