Lucy Durham with her returned case.Photo by Andrew Spight.

by Graham Tutthill
gtutthill@thekmgroup.co.uk

A Dover schoolgirl was breathing a sigh of relief this week after her bag - which went missing during a coach journey and contained important GCSE revision notes - was returned to her ... from China!

Lucy Durham, 16, who is a student at the Duke of York’s Royal Military School, lost her bag when she caught a coach from Dover to her home in Lichfield.

When she arrived, her heart sank when she had someone else’s luggage, and not her own.

The family contacted National Express customer services who started some detective work.

They identified another passenger who had joined the coach at Canterbury to go to Heathrow and who had picked up the case by mistake when changing at Victoria Coach Station.

Further enquiries located the case in Hong Kong, nearly 6,000 miles away.

Although that was good news, Lucy was still frantic because she was preparing for her final exams this month and needed her revision notes urgently.

"people talk about going the extra mile for their customers but on this occasion you might say we went to the extra 12,000" – vicki robinson of national express

Undeterred by the vast distance, determined staff at National Express’ Birmingham-based customer contact centre negotiated with an airline to put the suitcase on a flight back to Heathrow.

It then made the 100-plus mile journey to Birmingham on a coach, before being returned to Lucy at her home in Lichfield by taxi.

Arrangements were also made to reunite the other passenger with his luggage.

Lucy’s step-father Michael Rowley thanked National Express staff.

“I would like to express my huge gratitude to all of the staff involved in finding and relocating my daughter’s suitcase,” he said.

“The service National Express has shown is unbelievable and has put my faith back into customer relations.”

National Express customer services team manager Vicki Robinson said: “We were determined to reunite Lucy with her all-important revision notes as quickly as possible. Staff made a collective effort to get this passenger her luggage back.

“People talk about going the extra mile for their customers but on this occasion you might say we went to the extra 12,000.”