An Islander who received a reply to a message in a bottle 15 years after she threw it in the water is to appear on the One Show.

In December we reported how Leisha Barnard had been contacted on Facebook by a Dutch man who had found her letter on a beach on the Island of Texel in the Netherlands in 1998.

He tried writing back at the time, when he was 11 and she was eight, but water had blurred some of the address so it was never delivered.

Nonetheless, he had kept the original over the years and recently decided to look for her via social media.

The story caught the interest of the BBC One topical television programme and a crew came out to film Miss Barnard last Tuesday at the spot she threw the bottle off Sheerness beach.

The 23-year-old, of Medway Road, Sheerness, said: “I can’t believe it. They just asked me how excited I was and then I had to read out the letter.

“They went up to the Netherlands first. They are doing a piece because lots of things get washed up on the beach in Texel. Apparently over 400 letters in bottles have been washed up on that island.”

The show is expected to be broadcast in July.