A Kent man has received a letter from Prince Charles – more than three decades after it was sent.

Former police superintendent Adrian Greaves was amazed to learn that the letter - which congratulates him on leading a successful expedition to climb the Eiger in 1977 - was found in London, having travelled from Zimbabwe, before heading for Kent via Australia and America.

Dr Greaves, from Tenterden, near Ashford, said: "This must have a simple, logical explanation. The letter somehow arrived with a lady in Rhodesia and it was kept among her treasured items. But I don't know her and have never contacted her."

The story starts with Dr Greaves's brother Robin, who lives in America and who was contacted by Australian Trevor Keeling to say he had found the letter among his late mother's possessions.

His mother lived in the former Rhodesia – now Zimbabwe – until five years ago when she moved to London.

Sorting through her possessions, Mr Keeling found the letter and contacted Robin Greaves – someone he had last seen in 1977 when they stayed with his mother after being demobbed from the Rhodesian Air Force.

How the letter ended up with Mr Keeling's mother is a mystery - as is the coincidence Mr Keeling knew Dr Greaves's brother and was able to find him after 31 years.

Dr Greaves met Prince Charles at Kent Police headquarters in Maidstone just before the five-man Eiger expedition in 1977 and had promised to let the Prince, then chairman of the National Mountaineering Association, know how the climb went.

It is thought a telegram to Kent's then Chief Constable from Switzerland following the successful ascent was relayed to Buckingham Palace.

• For full story, see this week's Kentish Express.

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