A former Shropshire woman who was accidentally left a pile of Russian letters dating back to 1914 has finally tracked down the family they belong to.

Jenny Vaughan, 59, was desperate to find the owner of the letters and after an article in the Shropshire Star last month, the family have come forward.

Miss Vaughan, from Solihull, believed that they belonged to a wealthy Ukraine family who had moved to Telford before the Russian Revolution.

Miss Vaughan had been studying Russian for her O-Levels when the couple asked her to translate the family letters.

But she was unable to decode the language and gave the letters to her mother so she could return them.

But the letters, which span three years from 1913 to 1917, were never returned and were discovered in the personal belongings of Miss Vaughan’s mother, Nancy Vaughan, after her death in 1980.

The letters were sent to a lady called Mrs Pugh from her niece, Soboleva Viktoriya Nikolaevna.

Miss Vaughan said it was hard to believe the size of the public’s reaction to last month’s appeal.

“I had the most amazing response,” she said.

“The calls came in and a lot of them were from the lady’s side of the family but it was the gentleman’s side that I was interested in.

“Then I had a call from the last remaining relative of that family.”

She went to see them in Broseley and discovered they had been working “for donkey’s years” on their family tree but had no means of following up the Russian connection.

Miss Vaughan said: “The lady that contacted me said she usually reads the Shropshire Star but on this even-ing she didn’t and she came downstairs the next morning and there was the article. She was absolutely ecstatic.”

After decades of separation, the letters are now back in the Pugh family.

By Jason Lavan