Cyclone Tracy 50 years: Lost during the winds of Cyclone Tracy, a photo album has been returned
A wedding, a cyclone, and an abandoned building: how one woman’s exploring uncovered a photo album 50 years lost.
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Lost in the winds of Cyclone Tracy, a wedding album was discovered nearly 50 years later, sitting in an abandoned building.
Lidia (who has asked for her surname to be withheld) and her husband got married in 1974, and were waiting to show family their photo album when Cyclone Tracy swept the book away from their home into the skies, to be lost for half a century.
In January this year, Jorden Knowles was doing some exploring when she happened across the old album in a disused Darwin building.
“I was new to Darwin and I came across this building as the sun was setting,”
Jorden says.
“I was only in (the building) for a little bit, but there was this metal container, full of all sorts of different things that had a silver plaque on it.
“Then I looked at the next thing and it was this old photo album so I thought I would take it and try and find the owner, it really almost sounds made up.”
Because it was getting dark, Jorden collected the album but left everything else behind in the hope she would return when it was light.
With an unnamed wedding album in tow, Jorden began the search for its rightful owner but says she thought she could end up holding on to someone else’s photo album forever, until the unbelievable happened.
“I posted it on Facebook in the Darwin Old group and went to Berry Springs for the day so I wasn’t checking my phone, but then I saw it blew up and people had worked out that it was Lidia and I was jumping up and down because I couldn’t believe we were able to work out who it was,” she says.
“It was pretty surreal, I ended up getting Lidia’s number and she was working so I sent her a text and she was over the moon, and she called me and was crying because she couldn’t believe someone had found it.”
Lidia describes being overcome by emotion by the discovery.
“Miracles do happen,” Lidia says.
“It wasn’t in my mind that I’d ever find it again, I of course wondered where it was, but I never expected to see it again.
“A lot of my family had seen the story on Facebook, and it was just emotional, for
my son, he’d never seen the book, but my sisters and brothers too, it was just so emotional.”
During the night of Cyclone Tracy, Lidia stayed with her parents, not returning home for more than three days, and says she wasn’t sure what she would find when she got home.
Lidia’s home was destroyed but she says at the time the focus was on everyone being safe, not the materialistic losses.
Jorden says the return of the photo album was a matter of right place, right time.
“The whole story almost seems made up, this sort of thing just doesn’t happen, it’s one of those things that was meant to happen,” she says.
“Lidia and I met up at the shops and I brought the album and she brought me flowers and chocolate, and we sat there and talked for hours.
“She told me some of the stories and she said ‘I can’t believe it happened’. I didn’t think it was going to happen either.”
After 50 years, Lidia was finally able to show her family her wedding photos.
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Originally published as Cyclone Tracy 50 years: Lost during the winds of Cyclone Tracy, a photo album has been returned
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